Dual-earning is now common in Western couple households, despite the fact that a wife’s employment was historically associated with greater marital instability. This research examined whether a country’s level of policy support for a wife’s employment affects its associated divorce risk. It argues that more extensive policy supports can ease competing time demands and financial pressures on families which, in turn, may ease the link between a wife’s employment and divorce risk. Using harmonised national data, the researchers found that only in the US, where policy support is minimal, does a wife’s employment still significantly increase the risk of divorce. In Australia, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK, this is no longer the case. What is more, in Finland, Norway and Sweden, countries with the most generous welfare state and policy supports, wives in paid work have a significantly lower risk of divorce, as compared with wives who remain outside the labour force.