The harmony and conflict arising from couples’ employment status

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the effect of different employment statuses of partners/spouses, on eight metrics of harmony and conflict in the relationships of couples. We use longitudinal data from the United Kingdom covering the period 2009–2019 to examine the combination of a partner being self-employed or wage-employee, and their spouse being in either one of nine statuses (e.g. caring for family or home). We find that self-employment is more frequently observed in combinations of employment statuses which support harmony in couples, whereas wage-employment with combinations that offer security.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-employment
• wage-employment
• couples
• harmony
• conflict

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Individuals working for government training schemes, on apprenticeships, or ‘doing something else’ were also excluded from the analysis.