Explanation of Family Instability on the Basis of Utility Theory

The main issue of discussion in this paper is to investigate the decision-making for divorce by using the utility theory. This analysis is constructed on the exit-voice theory to explain what factors tend to increase or decrease the occurrence of divorce. This analysis proposes four hypotheses: first, men with higher income have less incentive to divorce. Second, women’s income has positive effect on probability of their incentive to divorce. Third, women’s employment destabilizes the marriage and fourth, men’s incentive to divorce is higher than that for women. To test these hypotheses, samples of married men and women (at least 35 years old) were used. The results suggest that third hypothesis is rejected while other hypotheses have been accepted.