Socio-economic status of men and the trend of unions breakdowns in Cameroon

Uilrich Inespéré M. Waffo, CARE-IFA et Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Appliquées en Sciences Sociales (CERASS)
H. Blaise Nguendo-Yongsi, Institut de Formation et de Recherche Démographiques (IFORD)

In Cameroon as in many African counties, marriage is the last stage of the transition process towards adulthood. Men usually involves in marriages only after they have secured a minimum of comfortable socioeconomic situation including residential and/or financial autonomy(ies). Meanwhile, men's socio-economic conditions are determinants of the duration and the stability of unions. It is then appropriate to enlighten how men’s socioeconomic status have affected the tendencies of couple dissolutions in a Cameroonian environment where the socio-cultural context dedicates sacredness of marriage and repel divorce; and where the accentuation of economic difficulties actually compromises the socio-economic stability of married men. More specifically, this study aims at identifying through the decomposition method, the sources of changes in the union breakdown pattern regarding the evolution of men’s socio-economic status and finally draw up the socio-economic profile of divorced men and identify the mains determinants through factorial analysis and binomial regression.