Midis de la recherche

Benjamin Marteau (INED et DEMO/UCLouvain),
Marie Bergström (INED),
Job insecurity and partnership instability among young couples in France

This communication focuses on the links between un-employment and partnership dissolution. It is part of a research on the articulation of professional and conjugal trajectories among young people. In both demography and sociology, the economic dimension of divorces and separations has mainly been addressed through the study of living conditions following union dissolution. Particular attention has thus been paid to the two partners’ loss of resources after a separation. Studies on the socioeconomic determinants of separation, on the other hand, are scarce. This is particularly the case in France, where the question of the "causes" of partnership instability has been largely underexplored. However, job instability generates uncertainties and difficulties that have an impact on conjugal pathways and on the relationship ties between partners. Using data from the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) survey in France, this project analyses the risk of a partnership dissolution associated with a spell of unemployment, as well as the transitions between professional situations linked to a separation.