Political economy of family life: couple's earnings, welfare regime and union dissolution

- The paper examines how welfare regimes moderate the relations of couples' relative/absolute earnings to union dissolution.
- The relationship between a couple's earnings and the likelihood of union dissolution were found to differ across regimes.
- Equality in earnings lowered the risk of separation in regimes with a high to moderate degree of defamilialization.
- Similar patterns of relations were found in regimes characterized by state defamilialization.
- Absolute earnings were related to union dissolution in regimes characterized by a low level of state defamilialization.

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.