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The Gendered Meanings of Assets for Divorce

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Abstract

Scholars identified a negative relationship between assets and divorce decades ago, but the mechanisms behind this relationship remain unknown. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 4,721 couples), this study compared three mechanisms that might link assets and divorce. Non-proportional Cox hazard models indicated that two of the three mechanisms explained the relationship between assets and divorce. Wives’ marital satisfaction and their perceptions of their hypothetical post-divorce standard of living completely mediated the relationship between assets and divorce. The relationship between assets and divorce was not related to husbands’ characteristics.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Steve Nock and Brad Wilcox for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this study. A grant from the Social Trends Institute and from the Witherspoon Institute supported the author’s efforts in this research. All analyses and interpretations are the authors’ sole responsibility and may not necessarily reflect the grant-making institutions’ views.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Virginia, 542 Cabell Hall, P.O. Box 400766, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4766, USA

    Jeffrey Dew

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Correspondence to Jeffrey Dew.

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Dew, J. The Gendered Meanings of Assets for Divorce. J Fam Econ Iss 30, 20–31 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-008-9138-3

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