McKinnish, Terra G. 2007. “Sexually Integrated Workplaces and Divorce: Another Form of On-the-Job Search.” Journal of Human Resources 42(2): 331–352.
As women have entered the work force and occupational sex segregation has declined, workers experience increased contact with the opposite sex on the job. The sex mix a worker encounters on the job should affect the cost of search for alternative mates and therefore the probability of divorce. This paper uses 1990 Census data to calculate the sex mix by industry-occupation cell. These results are then used to predict divorce among ever-married respondents in the 1990 Census and the NLSY79. The results indicate that those who work with a larger fraction of workers of the opposite sex are more likely to be divorced.
Terra McKinnish is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Colorado. The author is grateful for helpful comments from Joshua Angrist, Donna Ginther, Dan Hamermesh, Elizabeth Peters, Randy Walsh and Ruqu Wang, as well as participants at the IZA/SOLE 2003 Transatlantic Meetings, the 2004 CeMENT Workshop, the Economic Demography Workshop at the 2005 PAA Meetings and seminar participants at Duke University, University of Notre Dame, University of Maryland, University of Kansas, University of Colorado-Boulder, and University of Colorado-Denver. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning October 2007 through September 2010 from the author at UCB 256, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0256, mckinnis@colorado.edu.