Examining divorce risk through gender roles in Pakistan

Abstract

This research investigates the risk of divorce in Pakistan, considering various aspects of gender roles. We used rare events logistic regression to determine the risk of divorce based on socioeconomic variables. We find that females are more likely to be divorced than their male counterparts in all estimation scenarios. While our analysis partially supports the gender role specialization theory, both males and females who do not participate in the labor market are less likely to divorce according to empirical analysis. We also found that people living in urban areas are more likely to divorce due to a lack of social integration. The risk of divorce in various occupations remained the same across years of education and rural/urban living. Our results show that years of education decrease the likelihood of divorce. The current study fills the literature gap by analyzing divorce risk in Pakistan using several theories and hypotheses, most of which are based on gender roles. The study provides a significant number of observations and data on both married and divorced individuals, enabling a thorough investigation of divorce risk in Pakistan.