Individual Poverty Risk around Union Dissolution in the Netherlands: Unpacking Differences by Gender, Union Type, and Parental Status

Flavia Mazzeo , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Nicole Hiekel, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Agnese Vitali, University of Trento

Union dissolution is a critical turning point for individual economic security, especially in gendered contexts where women’s employment and earnings are shaped by parenthood. Yet research has rarely linked pre-dissolution income and fertility trajectories with post-dissolution economic vulnerability, when economic risks may be most acute, or systematically compared different legal union types. This study fills these gaps by examining individual poverty risk (IPR) around the dissolution of cohabitations, marriages, and registered cohabitations in the Netherlands. Drawing on full-population administrative registers (n=105,330 individuals; 1.1 million person-years), we estimate random-effect panel logistic regressions and multistate models to track the joint evolution of employment and IPR around separation. This approach enables us to study how the work-family trajectories adopted during a union are linked to economic outcomes after dissolution. Preliminary results show that mothers face the highest poverty risks before separation; the Dutch welfare state temporarily cushions income losses; gender gaps narrow post-dissolution but persist in earnings due to women’s part-time employment. Our findings demonstrate how gendered specialization and union context shape inequality trajectories around separation.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 97. Economic and Health Inequalities after Union Dissolution