title: Political economy of family life: couple's earnings, welfare regime and union dissolution.
abstract: This study examines how institutional settings moderate the relation of couples' relative and absolute earnings to the likelihood of union dissolution. Based on ECHP data, it covers 12 countries in four welfare regimes. The relationship between a couple's economic dependence and the likelihood of union dissolution were found to differ across regimes. With regard to relative earnings, equality in earnings lowered the risk of separation only in regimes characterized by a high degree of defamilialization, through either the state or the market. As for absolute earnings, women's and men's earnings were significantly related to the risk of union dissolution only in regimes where state defamilialization is low.
authors.affiliation: Department of Government and Society, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College, Israel. Electronic address: amitka@012.net.il.
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kaplan
authors.affiliation: Department of Labor Studies, Department of Sociology, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
authors.forename: Haya
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Stier
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004243:Divorce; D005060:Europe; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006076:Government; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D011057:Politics; D011640:Public Policy; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits; D012946:Social Welfare; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Couple relations; Earning dependency; Economic independence; Relative earnings; Union dissolution; Welfare regime