The effect of professional dynamics on the partnership dynamics of couples in Luxembourg

Lucile Bodson, Centre d'Etudes de Populations, de Pauvreté et de Politiques Socio-Economiques (CEPS)
Mathias Kuepie, DIAL-Paris et CEPS/INTEAD (Luxembourg)

The aim of this paper is to assess the effect of the wage of each member of the couple, the effect of wages’ differential between partners at time t and the effect of the variation of this differential from one year to another, on the stability of the couple. To answer these questions we run a Cox semi-parametric proportional hazards model on the data of the Luxembourgish socioeconomic households panel (PSELL) for the period 1985-1994 (PSELL1) and 1994-2000 (PSELL2). The results highlight a link between couples’ stability and the professional dynamics, stronger for the second period. A gender asymmetry has been identified: from one year to the next (1994-2000 period), the risk of divorce increases by 4% when the wages differential increases by 100 Euros in favour of women, and reduces by 9% when the differential is in favour of men.