If you're an unemployed man seeking divorce advice in Pasadena, being jobless may have to do with your newly-single status. A recent study on divorce and unemployment finds that men with no job are more likely to get divorced than their employed counterparts.
The study, conducted by researchers at Ohio State University, found that even though women are a force to be reckoned with in the workplace, men are largely expected to still be the breadwinners. Unemployed men were also more likely to initiate a divorce - even if they were happy in their marriage - than guys with jobs. Unemployed women, on the other hand, were less likely to seek a divorce than employed wives.
"These effects probably emanate from the greater change in women's than men's roles," the researchers write in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Sociology. "Women's employment has increased and is accepted, men's nonemployment is unacceptable to many, and there is a cultural ambivalence and lack of institutional support for men taking on 'feminized' roles such as household work and emotional support."
Researchers found that employment still provides women with financial security and enables them to leave a marriage when they are dissatisfied with their relationships. Men, on the other hand, are unlikely to leave their wives based on employment status. This is a telling finding which suggests women still have greater societal acceptance when it comes to whether they need to enter the workforce.
Liana Sayer, Ph.D., of Ohio State University and her staff analyzed data on more than 3,600 couples from 1987 to 2002.