Family social background and marital instability in Italy. Do parental education and social class matter?

Notwithstanding much scholarly attention paid to the determinants of marital dissolution in recent decades, little analysis of the role of family social background has been produced. This study consolidates the research assessing the association between family social background and marital stability in Italy. Italy is an interesting case because of its institutional and cultural context. The empirical analysis considered here stems from the theoretical framework derived from Goode (1962) on the social composition of people dissolving their marriages. Some discrete-time hazard models estimate the effect of family social background on marital stability. Findings demonstrate that, in Italy, the higher the family social background, the higher the risk of marital disruption. Moreover, this study sheds new light on the effects of some well-investigated correlates of union dissolution, namely education and parental disruption.

► I study the association between social background and marital stability in Italy.
► Discrete-time hazard models were estimated.
► The higher the social background, the higher the risk of disruption.
► Unexpected effects of education and of parental disruption on marital stability.