Unemployment, Job Insecurity, and Union Dissolution: Evidence from France

Anne Solaz, Institut National d'etudes Demographiques (INED)

This paper analyzes the impact of unemployment and job insecurity on French couples' dissolution risk. First, it explores how unemployment could affect couples' stability, by distinguishing three types of effects of unemployment: an outcome effect, a surprise effect, and a marital capital effect. The originality is that the study separates the impact of unemployment at the beginning of the union from unemployment happening later. Methods are duration analysis on the period from the first cohabitation (semi-parametric model with timing varying covariates). Results show that engaging in a union with an unemployed partner only increases men's risk of dissolution. If unemployment comes later, while a couple's investments are higher (child, marriage), couples facing unemployment (man's or woman's) seem to resist separation. Negative effect on couple stability of the loss of one partner's income is compensated by the marital capital. Surprise effect is not significant.