a study of the determinants of divorce in iran with an emphasis on economic factors an application of the panel data model

this paper studies the factors influencing divorce rate across the provinces of iran with an emphasis on economic factors, particularly unemployment and inflation. in the literature review, economic as well as psychology literature has been dealt with. to measure the impact of economic factors on divorce rate, unemployment and inflation variables have been examined. the rates of urbanization and higher education have been considered as control variables. the experimental model utilized for data analysis is the econometric model based on fixed effects panel data model benefiting from the data of 28 provinces of iran over the period 2002 to 2012. the estimation results of the experimental model revealed a significantly positive relationship between divorce and the independent variables: 1 percent increase in unemployment led to 0.134 percent increase in divorce, 1 percent increase in inflation led to 0.133 percent increase in divorce, an increase of 1 percent in higher education led to 0.13 percent increase in divorce and, finally, 1 percent increase in urbanization led to 2.88 percent increase in divorce. the results also indicate that, in small and religious provinces such as yazd and qom, these unknown factors have a positive impact on divorce rate and, in big provinces like tehran and khorasan, they have a negative impact on divorce rate