Education and Divorce in a Patriarchal Society: A Study of Palestinian-Arabs in Israel

• In Event: Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: Homogamy, Heterogamy, and Marriage

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between women’s individual and relative educational
attainment and the risk of divorce within Palestinian-Arab society in Israel, a population
experiencing rapid social and economic change while retaining patriarchal norms. Over
recent decades, Palestinian-Arab women have surpassed men in education, reversing the
traditional gender gap and altering patterns of assortative mating. At the same time, divorce
rates have risen sharply, raising questions about whether education stabilizes marriage by
providing women with resources or destabilizes it by challenging traditional gender
hierarchies.
Using administrative longitudinal data on 50,362 first marriages contracted up to 2015, we
analysed divorce risk with Cox regression models. Women’s education is negatively
associated with divorce, a robust effect largely independent of employment or income. In
contrast, relative education reveals distinct patterns: educational heterogamy increases
divorce risk, driven mainly by hypogamous unions where wives are more educated than their
husbands. Examining assortative mating dynamics shows that divorce risk is highest among
the least educated—both individually and as couples—while unions where wives have less
education face lower risks. These patterns remain stable across marriage cohorts. Overall,
women’s education strengthens marriage through homogamy but destabilizes unions that
challenge patriarchal role expectations. Without a shift toward more egalitarian norms,
education thus plays a dual role in marital stability—strengthening it among higher-status
groups while potentially reinforcing social inequalities across households.

Authors

• Maha Sabbah-Karkabi, Ben Gurion University

• Maria Stanfors