Skip to main content
Log in

The Association Between Consumer Debt and the Likelihood of Divorce

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Family and Economic Issues Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

As part of the Center for Financial Security’s 2010 symposium, this study examined the association between consumer debt and divorce. Longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 4,574 couples) indicated that consumer debt was positively associated with divorce. Financial conflict completely mediated this association for both husbands and wives and marital satisfaction also completely mediated the association for wives. These findings suggest that when families take financial steps to secure their financial stability they may also be taking steps to secure their relationship stability.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Age, though used in other studies, was not a selection criterion for this study. Consequently, this study has a large age range of participants. To ensure that the findings were robust with respect to age, I conducted the analyses after dropping anyone over age 61 (e.g., retirement age) and anyone under the age of 21. The findings were unchanged (not shown).

  2. This study did not use automobile loans because they have both an asset and a liability component and are typically secured loans. Further, the loan amount is not revolving, the interest rates are fixed and are much lower than interest rates on typical consumer debt.

  3. Less than 1.5% of the participants had negative equity. Because it is impossible to take the log of a negative number, I set these values equal to 0.

  4. I conducted two additional sensitivity analysis regarding income (not shown). First, I used a dummy variable to represent being in the lowest income quartile (0 = income above the lowest quartile, 1 = income in the lowest quartile). This dummy variable was not a significant predictor of divorce in the models. I also tried using 3 dummy variables to represent the 3 lowest income quartiles. Relative to the highest income quartile, none of the other 3 groups had higher hazards of divorce.

  5. I ran the analyses with self-reported health as a control covariate (not shown). Self-reported health was not associated with divorce and was only weakly correlated (at best) with consumer debt (r = .02, p < .001 for husbands, consumer debt was uncorrelated to wives’ self-reported health).

References

  • Allison, P. D. (2010). Survival analysis using the SAS system: A practical guide (2nd ed.). Cary, NC: SAS Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amato, P. R., & Rogers, S. J. (1997). A longitudinal study of marital problems and subsequent divorce. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 59, 612–624.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andersen, J. D. (2005). Financial problems and divorce: Do demographic characteristics strengthen the relationship? Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 43, 149–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baron, R. M., & Kenney, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social-psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Britt, S. L., Grable, J. E., Nelson-Goff, B. S., & White, M. (2008). The influence of perceived spending behaviors on relationship satisfaction. Financial Counseling and Planning, 19, 31–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang, Y., & Lee, K. Y. (2006). Household debt and marital instability: Evidence from the Korean labor and income panel study. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 27, 675–691.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cherlin, A. J. (2004). The deinstitutionalization of American marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 848–861.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., Elder, G. H., Jr., Lorenz, F. O., Simons, R. L., & Whitbeck, L. B. (1993). Family economic stress and adjustment of early adolescent girls. Developmental Psychology, 29, 206–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conger, R. D., Rueter, M. A., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (1999). Couple resilience to economic pressure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 54–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coontz, S. (2005). Marriage, a history: From obedience to intimacy or how love conquered marriage. New York: Viking.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dean, L. R., Carroll, J. S., & Yang, C. (2007). Materialism, perceived financial problems, and marital satisfaction. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 35, 260–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dew, J. P. (2007). Two sides of the same coin? The differing roles of assets and consumer debt in marriage. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 28, 89–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dew, J. P. (2008). The relationship between debt change and marital satisfaction change in recently married couples. Family Relations, 57, 60–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dew, J. P. (2009). The gendered meanings of assets for divorce. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 30, 20–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dew, J. P., & Dakin, J. (2011). Financial disagreements and marital conflict tactics. Journal of Financial Therapy, 2(1), 23–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisher, J. D., & Lyons, A. C. (2006). Till debt do us part: A model of divorce and personal bankruptcy. Review of Economics of the Household, 4, 35–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grable, J. E., Britt, S. L., & Cantrell, J. (2007). An exploratory study of the role financial satisfaction has on the thought of subsequent divorce. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 38, 130–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, D. R. (1993). Are single-item measures of marital quality valid? The case of marital happiness. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National Council on Family Relations, Baltimore MD

  • Kenney, C. T. (2006). The power of the purse: Allocation systems and inequality in couple households. Gender & Society, 20, 354–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Major, B. (1987). Gender, justice, and the psychology of entitlement. In P. S. C. Hendrick (Ed.), Sex and gender (pp. 124–148). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, S. P. (2004). Growing evidence for a “Divorce Divide”? Education and marital dissolution rates in the U.S. since the 1970’s. In Series on social dimensions of inequality. New York: Russel Sage Foundation Working Papers.

  • McGoldrick, M. (1999). Becoming a couple. In B. Carter & M. McGoldrick (Eds.), The expanded family life cycle (pp. 231–248). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nye, F. I. (1982). The basic theory. In F. I. Nye (Ed.), Family relationships: Rewards and costs (pp. 13–31). Beverly Hills, C.A.: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pahl, J. (1995). His money, her money: Recent research on financial organization in marriage. Journal of Economic Psychology, 16, 361–376.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, C. (2003). Taming the sharks. Akron, OH: University of Akron.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poduska, B. E. (1995). For love and money: How to share the same checkbook and still love each other. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Co.

  • Rick, S. I., Small, D. A., & Finkel, E. J. (2009). Fatal (fiscal) attraction: Spendthrifts and tightwads in marriage. SSRN working paper. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1339240

  • Rubin, D. B. (1987). Multiple imputation for non-response in surveys. New York: Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez, L., & Gager, C. T. (2000). Hard living, perceived entitlement to a great marriage, and marital dissolution. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 708–722.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaninger, C. M., & Buss, W. C. (1986). A longitudinal comparison of consumption and finance handling between happily married and divorced couples. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 129–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skogrand, L., Johnson, A. C., Horrocks, A. M., & DeFrain, J. (2010). Financial management practices of couples with great marriages. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 32, 27–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smock, P. J., Manning, W. D., & Porter, M. (2005). “Everything’s there except money”: How money shapes decisions to marry among cohabitors. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67, 680–696.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sweet, J., Bumpass, L., & Call, V. (1988). The design and content of the national survey of families and households. NSFH working paper #1: Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

  • Thibault, J., & Kelley, H. H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, L. (1991). Family work: Women’s sense of fairness. Journal of Family Issues, 12, 181–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thorne, D. (2010). Extreme financial strain: Emergent chores, gender inequality, and emotional distress. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 31, 185–197.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Federal Reserve. (2011). Federal reserve statistical release: G.19 consumer credit. Retrieved August 20, 2011 from http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/Current/

  • Whitehead, B. D., & Popenoe, D. (2001). The state of our unions 2001: Who wants to marry a soul mate? Piscataway. NJ: National Marriage Project.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woolsey, B., & Schulz, M. (2010). Credit card statistics, industry facts, debt statistics. Retrieved June 10, 2010, from http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-industry-facts-personal-debt-statistics-1276.php

  • Zagorsky, J. L. (2003). Husbands’ and wives’ view of the family finances. Journal of Socio-Economics, 32, 127–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zelizer, V. A. (1994). The social meaning of money. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeffrey Dew.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Dew, J. The Association Between Consumer Debt and the Likelihood of Divorce. J Fam Econ Iss 32, 554–565 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-011-9274-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-011-9274-z

Keywords

Navigation