Divorce among exogamous couples: The role of language convergence

Abstract

This is the first study to use longitudinal population register data to illustrate that marital stability may relate to the adoption of the spouse's language. The paper draws on theories of boundary shifting and boundary crossing to examine two main ancestral groups in Finland, Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers, between whom intermarriage is common. Administrative changes in how the question about language/ethnicity was registered between the censuses of 1975 and 1980 make it possible to distinguish between persons who are concordant or discordant on the main language used and ethnic affiliation. Using data on the entire married population, and adjusting for several individuals and couple characteristics, we estimate the couples’ divorce risk as a function of language convergence with Cox regressions. Discordance in terms of adopting the Finnish language used by the partner is associated with a higher divorce risk, as compared with couples who are exogamous in terms of both language use and ethnic affiliation. Adopting the Swedish language, on the other hand, is associated with a slightly reduced divorce risk. Thus, these data provide some evidence that marital stability may relate to language convergence.