Parental divorce homogamy and its effect on separation from cohabitation and marriage

Abstract

<div>Numerous studies have shown that parental divorce increases children’s divorce risk. We </div><div>extend this literature by assessing how parental divorce on both sides of a (potential) couple </div><div>affects their partnering dynamics. Specifically, we explore 1) whether there is parental divorce </div><div>homogamy and whether the parental divorce of both partners adds to the dissolution of both 2) </div><div>cohabiting and 3) married unions. Our analyses use event history models on high-quality </div><div>Finnish Census Panel data covering 28,021 cohabiting and marital partnerships between ages </div><div>18 and 45. We found substantial parental divorce homogamy in that children who experienced </div><div>parental divorce are 13% more likely to cohabit with and 17% more likely to marry a fellow </div><div>child of divorce. Moreover, contrary to evidence from the United States and Norway, our </div><div>findings for Finland support an additive, not a multiplicative, effect. Here, both partners’ </div><div>parental divorce increases their offspring’s dissolution risk by 20% for cohabitation and 70% </div><div>for marriage compared to couples where neither of their parents are divorced. We conclude that </div><div>parental divorce on both sides of a couple affects family formation processes at multiple stages. </div><div>In Finland, these effects are notably less than previously found in the United States. This is </div><div>likely because cohabitation and separation are wide-spread and socially accepted in Finland </div><div>and an expansive welfare state buffers the socio-economic consequences of divorce. </div>