Education and marital dissolution: does marital satisfaction explain the gradient?

The relationship between education and divorce has recently reversed in several countries with the less educated men and women being currently more likely to divorce. This carries potential implications for class and gender inequalities in family life, well-being, and children’s life chances. However, little is known about why the least educated currently have lower family stability. Two main explanations can be identified in the literature. First, those with less education could have lower marital satisfaction. Second, those with less education could have lower thresholds to divorce. Relationship dissolution means that a person also gives up access to their partners’ resources. If spouses possess many resources, the drop in marital satisfaction required to motivate a person to divorce might therefore be higher.
Empirical evidence so far has not provided evidence which of the two explanations holds. We use data from the British Household Panel Survey to analyze the trends in marital satisfaction among educational groups and the risks of divorce in these groups given satisfaction levels. We find that marital satisfaction trajectories are practically identical for people with distinct levels of education. Additional analysis will be presented to investigate what explains variation in exit thresholds by education.