Full-time Working Couples and their Life Course. An Analysis of Leaving Full-time Employment

I n the initial phase of family formation a majority of all spouses works full-time. As a result most couples start off as full-time working couples. We used complete career reports of 2.014 couples from the Netherlands to answer the question of which life-course events and individual social resources determine a couple’s exit from dual full-time employment. We estimated the probability of leaving full-time work with dynamic competing risk models. Our results indicate that family transitions such as a first childbirth, family growth and mobility cause a couple to leave full-time work. Results also showed that men raised in high educated families favour an arrangement in which their wife works part-time as opposed to becoming a housewife. By contrast, a high status occupation keeps women in dual full-time employment.