Employed women and marital union stability: it helps when men help

A new strand of studies has called into question standard microeconomic predictions of a positive association between women’s economic independence and marital union dissolution. We investigate whether and how the gender division of labor channels the impact of women’s employment on marital union disruption, utilizing data on heterosexual couples from the 2003 and 2007 waves of the Italian nationally representative “Family and Social Subject” survey (N = 2,871) and applying techniques of mediation analysis. We suggest that women’s employment does not have a negative effect per se on union stability, and that women’s paid work becomes detrimental to the stability of the union only if the men’s contribution to unpaid work is limited.