Separations among first time parents in Sweden

The aim of this study is to investigate separations in Sweden and to see what factors that affect the dissolution of a union. The data used is based on information from the Swedish Total Population Register and covers the about 30 000 couples that had their first biological child in 2000. The couples are followed from the day that they started living together to a possible separation or the end of 2010.The result shows that when comparing with the child’s year of birth, the likelihood of separation is significant higher during all studied calendar years. The data is also analyzed using two Cox proportional hazard regression models. The first model, standardized by demographic factors, indicates for instance that young mothers and a short time of cohabitation means a high risk to separate and that cohabiting couples have a higher propensity to separate than married couples. The second model shows that low educated couples and couples were both are unemployed have a high risk to separate, when controlling for other socioeconomic factors. These results are consistent with earlier studies from the mid 1990s among parents based on Swedish register data.