Reasons for Divorcing and Their Relationships with Divorcees' Demographic and Socioeconomic Status: The Case of Korea

BACKGROUND Divorce data from Korea provide a unique opportunity for divorce research. Korea’s divorce declaration record includes detailed information on reasons for divorcing as well as on divorcees' demographic and socioeconomic status such as age at marriage, occupations, and the education level. OBJECTIVE Using divorce data from Korea, this study examines the characteristics of divorcees classified by reasons for divorcing and provides a multinomial logit analysis to assess the relationships between divorcees' demographic and socioeconomic status and their reasons for divorcing. RESULTS The demographic and socioeconomic status of divorcees was closely related to reasons for divorcing. For example, unemployed husbands were more likely to get divorced for economic problems than for any other reason. By contrast, couples with skilled jobs were more likely to get divorced for personal differences than for economic problems.