Does Culture Affect Divorce? Evidence From European Immigrants in the United States

Furtado, D. ; Marcén, M. (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Sevilla, A.

Resumen: This article explores the role of culture in determining divorce by examining country-of-origin differences in divorce rates of immigrants in the United States. Because childhood-arriving immigrants are all exposed to a common set of U.S. laws and institutions, we interpret relationships between their divorce tendencies and home-country divorce rates as evidence of the effect of culture. Our results are robust to controlling for several home-country variables, including average church attendance and gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, specifications with country-of-origin fixed effects suggest that immigrants from countries with low divorce rates are especially less likely to be divorced if they reside among a large number of coethnics. Supplemental analyses indicate that divorce culture has a stronger impact on the divorce decisions of females than of males, pointing to a potentially gendered nature of divorce taboos.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1007/s13524-012-0180-2

Año: 2013

Publicado en: DEMOGRAPHY 50, 3 (2013), 1013-1038
ISSN: 0070-3370

Factor impacto JCR: 2.631 (2013)

Categ. JCR: DEMOGRAPHY rank: 1 / 25 = 0.04 (2013) - Q1 - T1

Tipo y forma: Article (PostPrint)

Área (Departamento): Área Fund. Análisis Económico (Dpto. Análisis Económico)