New Study Finds Politically Mismatched Couples Are More Likely to Break Up, With Abortion Bans Accelerating Separations
A UC Berkeley study finds politically mismatched couples are 14% more likely to separate, with abortion bans accelerating splits in states criminalizing the procedure after the 2022 Dobbs decision.
Researchers at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy analyzed voter registration records for 60 million couples from 2014 to 2024, finding that politically mismatched couples—those registered to different parties—were over 14% less likely to remain together between election cycles. The study, led by Rachel Funk Fordham and Ernesto Tiburcio, used longitudinal voter file data to track separation rates, revealing that even after accounting for factors like age, income, and marital status, mismatched couples were 0.61 percentage points less likely to stay together over two years. The researchers note that political differences within relationships have become more consequential in an era of heightened polarization.
The study highlights how politically charged events exacerbate tensions in mismatched couples. In counties with above-median voter turnout, mismatched couples were significantly more likely to separate than politically aligned couples, whose separation rates remained unchanged. The researchers leveraged the 2022 Dobbs decision, which led to abortion bans in 13 states, as a natural experiment to measure the policy’s impact on relationships.
Following the Dobbs ruling, newly formed mismatched couples in abortion-ban states were 1.47 percentage points less likely to remain together by 2022, an 11% increase over the baseline separation rate for such couples. The effect was not observed in states that imposed bans after 2022 or in politically matched couples, suggesting the policy itself drove the separations. The findings were concentrated among couples with one Democrat and one Republican, aligning with party lines on abortion preferences.
The study’s dataset includes 60 million couples across 35 states that record party registration, though it excludes non-heterosexual couples and relies on voter files, which may underestimate separation rates due to mismatched couples dropping off voter rolls. The paper, currently a working draft, contributes to research on how polarization extends beyond politics into personal relationships, though it has not yet undergone peer review.