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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Gender and family stability
Dissolution of the first parental union in Sweden and Hungary

 

Livia Sz. Oláh

 
VOLUME 4 - ARTICLE 2
 
Date Received: 15 Jun 2000
Date Published: 19 Feb 2001

http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol4/2/

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Abstract
The increasing trend of partnership disruption among families with children in recent decades has been accompanied by substantial changes in traditional gender roles in industrialized countries. Yet, relatively little is known about the effects of changing gender relations on family stability in the European context. In this paper, we study such gender influences at the familial and societal level in Sweden and Hungary between the mid-1960s and the early 1990s. We focus on the disruption of the first parental union (i.e. the union in which a couple’s first child was born). Our analysis is based on data extracted from the Swedish and Hungarian Fertility and Family Surveys of 1992/93. We use the method of hazard regression. The results suggest (i) that the establishment of the dual-earner family model influences family stability only if it is accompanied by some changes in traditional gender relations within the family, and (ii) that women’s and men’s labor-market behavior have different effects in spite of the relatively long history of women’s (also mothers’) labor-force participation in both Sweden and Hungary.

Author's affiliation
Livia Sz. Oláh
Stockholm University, Sweden

Keywords
divorce, divorce law and custody, family dissolution, family policy, gender relations, Hungary, Sweden

Word count (Main text)
10215

Other Articles by the same author/authors (in Demographic Research)
file[19-56] Men's childbearing desires and views of the male role in Europe at the dawn of the 21st century
file[19-28] Sweden: Combining childbearing and gender equality
file[S3-9] Becoming a Mother in Hungary and Poland during State Socialism

Similar Articles (in Demographic Research)
file [7-9] Twins or two single children: The influence of the multiplicity of the first birth on the divorce risk of Swedish women (Sweden, divorce)
file [5-3] Demographic trends in Sweden: Childbearing developments in 1961-2000, marriage and divorce developments in 1971-1999 (Sweden, divorce)
file [S3-9] Becoming a Mother in Hungary and Poland during State Socialism (Hungary, gender relations)

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