Falling Out of Love: Non-Economic Shocks and Their Effect on Partnership Dissolution

Whether non-economic factors such as marital happiness and well-being influence the proba- bility of divorce? What if we also consider other factors such as the length of marriage and separation in the long term? I quantitatively measure the economic and non-economic factors that might influence divorce using British Household Panel Study. According to the results of my baseline model, only match qualities matter in predicting the probability of separation. My results also provide some key insights for extensions of this baseline model. The economic and non-economic factors are best at predicting separation that happens within a 3-years time range. And wives’ match qualities have similar effects with the husbands’ when looking at sep- aration hazards in the long run. After controlling for marriage duration, negative match quality received by the husbands will significantly increase divorce hazards, while the reverse is true for wives. Contrary to previous findings, none of the economic factors are significant in my models