Divorce risks of immigrants in Sweden

Gunnar Andersson, Stockholm University
Kirk A. Scott, Lund University

Migration is a stressful life event that may be related to subsequent marital instability. However, while the demographic dynamics related to the fertility and mortality of migrants have been studied in great detail, we still lack accurate analyses of divorce risks of immigrants in Europe. The present study improves on this situation by investigating the divorce risks of immigrants in Sweden. It focuses on immigrants who married subsequent to migration to Sweden and tests the relative importance of cultural background and socio-economic status in explaining the divorce behavior of immigrants. Both factors turn out to be important. For groups for which divorce risks are elevated, this can often be explained by immigrants’ relatively poor labor-market status. Other groups of immigrants rather have depressed divorce risks. Our study is based on population register data on the resident population of Sweden and covers the fifteen most common immigrant groups in this country.