According to a recent study by the London School of Economics and Political Science, women who fear their marriages will break up are more likely to work overtime and see it as “some kind of insurance policy” for their marriages, according to the British press. For every percentage point increase in the risk of marriage dissolution, women put in 12 minutes more time at work.
Dr. Bokai Ozkan of the London School of Economics and Political Science and his colleagues found in a survey of 3,000 families that women in marital distress significantly increased their workload. Men, on the other hand, do not make the same move when the couple is in tension.
To calculate the effect of marriage on women’s motivation to work, Dr. Ozkan also used data from 1996, when divorce was legalized in Ireland.
He said that because divorce is harder for women, women see work as a form of insurance for their marriage. The greater the risk of marriage dissolution, the more time they devote to work, and a 1 percent increase in the risk of marriage dissolution increases the time women devote to work by 12 minutes.
Homework not reduced by overtime
Dr. Ozkan said women are more likely to commit to work because their marriage is in trouble, not because women working outside the home will lead to divorce. The study also found that even if women worked longer hours outside the home, it did not reduce the amount of time they spent with their children, nor did the amount of time fathers spent caring for their children increase as a result. “Our findings show that a change in the way women work outside the home does not lead to a reduction in family commitments. Women will work more hours outside the home in the short term to keep their marriages, and this comes at the expense of their rest, and even their health.”
He also said that in the short term, marriage breakup hurts women more than men because women are in a weaker position, both financially and psychologically. In the long term, putting more energy into work might be beneficial for women because it might adjust women’s position at work and give them better job opportunities.