Changing partners: Toward a macrostructural-opportunity theory of marital dissolution

We merge marital history data for respondents in the National Sun,ey of Fam ilies and Households with census data describing the sex composition of the ir local marriage markets and occupations to examine the impact of the avai lability of spousal alternatives on marital dissolution. Proportional hazar ds regression models that adjust for left truncation reveal that the risk o f divorce is highest in geographically defined marriage markets where eithe r husbands or wives encounter numerous alternatives to their current partne r. Couples are also more likely to divorce when the wife works in an occupa tion having relatively many men and few women, but husbands' occupational s ex ratio has no effect on the risk of marital dissolution. The destabilizin g effects of the availability of spousal alternatives in the local marriage market and in wives occupations are equally strong among couples with many , and few other risk factors for divorce. Our findings suggest that spouses ' structural opportunities to form alternative opposite-sex relationships a re an important factor in explaining why some couples divorce.