The Impacts of Economic and Social Factors on Divorce Rate in Iran with Emphasis on Business Cycles, Women's Education and Employment

This paper investigates the role of socioeconomic factors in the divorce rate, with emphasis on business cycles, women’s education and employment which have ambiguous impacts in the literature. For this purpose, the empirical model is estimated by using the panel data econometrics, based on the data for 30 provinces of Iran over the period of 2007-2015. According to the results, inflation and unemployment rates have positive impacts on divorce rate and also, the business cycle effects in divorce indicate that the divorce in Iran has counter-cyclical behavior. The impacts of social factors on divorce show that educated women’s employment is positively related to marital stability through the reduction of family economic strain.