Do personality traits have an influence on the repartnering tendency after divorce?
Researcher: Kathrin Stief
Departement: Monitoring Society and Social Change, German Microdata Lab
Abstract
This paper examines the influence of personality on repartnering after divorce. The three reasons to enter a partnership—need, attractiveness, and opportunity—are understood as the mechanisms through which the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) are likely to influence repartnering. This study provides a theoretical framework for the influence of personality on repartnering, and further addresses the need to not only focus on remarriage but also cohabitation after divorce.
Estimates from a Cox regression using recorded relationship histories from the German Socio-economic Panel show that extraversion has a statistically significant positive effect on the repartnering tendency of women. Other personality traits do not have a statistically significant impact on repartnering.
Poster Presentation:
Stief, Kathrin (2018): Do personality traits have an influence on the repartnering tendency after divorce? ECSR 2018 Conference: Causes and Consequences of Inequalities in Europe, 29.10.2018.