Job pressure on men 'can affect a marriage'
While a woman can choose whether she works or not, men are still expected to be head of the household in many areas. There is more pressure on the man of the house in terms of employment than the woman, according to research from the United States.
They found an employed woman is more likely to initiate a divorce than a woman who is not employed but men who are relatively happy in their marriages are more likely to leave if they are not employed.
The research, led by Liana Sayer of Ohio State University, was designed to show how employment status influences both men's and women's decisions to divorce.
That men who are not employed, regardless of their marital satisfaction, are more likely to initiate divorce suggests that a marriage in which the man does not work "does not look like what [men] think a marriage is supposed to," the report said.
In contrast, women's employment alone does not encourage divorce initiated by either party.
"These effects probably emanate from the greater change in women's than men's roles," the researchers write. "Women's employment has increased and is accepted, men's nonemployment is unacceptable to many, and there is a cultural ambivalence and lack of institutional support for men taking on 'feminised' roles such as household work and emotional support."
