Wealth and Relational Inequality: How Household Assets Shape Marital Stability by Family Type in Japan

This study examines whether the protective effect of wealth on marital stability varies across family types in contemporary Japan. As women's economic participation rises and family structures diversify, scholars debate whether assets function similarly across different household configurations, yet empirical evidence remains limited, particularly in East Asian societies experiencing rapid family transformation. This study employs discrete-time event history models on panel data from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers spanning 1993 to 2021 to assess how assets influence divorce risk across family types. The analysis reveals that wealth provides significant protection against marital dissolution for all family configurations, though this effect varies by household type. The protective effect is strongest among traditional male-breadwinner families and weakest among female-breadwinner households, with dual-earner families falling between these extremes. Financial assets show substantially weaker protective effects in dual-earner families compared to traditional households, whereas illiquid assets such as housing maintain consistent protective effects across all family types. These patterns persist when using continuous measures of women's relative income or detailed employment classifications. The findings suggest that despite profound transformations in family structure, economic resources remain fundamental to marital stability. While the function of liquid assets varies with household power dynamics, illiquid assets maintain universal protective effects. These results illuminate how growing wealth inequality increasingly translates into disparities in relationship stability, contributing to the broader stratification of family life in contemporary Japan.