Divorce by family composition and socioeconomic status in Finnish first marriages

This is the first report of a research project that focuses on the impact of socioeconomic factors on divorce risk in the context of other determinants. In this paper; divorce risk differentials are examined by two measures of family composition and various indicators of spouses' socioeconomic status. Divorce risk differentials are described also by two temporal variables; which are used as control variables in the other analyses. This is a register-based follow-up study, covering Finnish first marriages which were intact at the end of 1990 and judicial divorces between l 991 and l 993. A piecewise exponential hazards model is used. When the temporal factors were recontrolled for; divorce risk increased with increasing age of the youngest child, and divorce risk decreased with increasing numbers of children in the family in every age group of the youngest child. Also, when the temporal factors were held constant, socioeconomic status was inversely related to divorce risk, when socioeconomic status was measured by either of the spouses' education, occupational class or economic activity, husbands income or housing tenure.