Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP9081
Authors: Wolfgang Frimmel; Martin Halla; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer
Abstract: Policies to promote marriage are controversial, and it is unclear whether they are successful. To analyze such policies, it is essential to distinguish between a marriage that is created by a marriage-promoting policy (marginal marriage) and a marriage that would have been formed even in the absence of a state intervention (average marriage). In this paper, we exploit the suspension of a cash-on-hand marriage subsidy in Austria to examine the differential behavior of marginal and average marriages. The announcement of this suspension led to an enormous marriage boom (plus 350 percent) among eligible couples that allows us to identify marginal marriages. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, we show that marginal marriages are surprisingly as stable as average marriages, but have fewer children and have them later in marriage. Notably, the children born to marginal marriages are similar in terms of health at birth.
Keywords: divorce; fertility; marital instability; marriage subsidies; marriage-promoting policies
JEL Codes: H24; H53; I38; J12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| suspension of cash-on-hand marriage subsidy (H53) | marginal marriages stability (J12) |
| marginal marriages (J12) | divorce rates (J12) |
| marginal marriages (J12) | number of children (J13) |
| marginal marriages (J12) | timing of children (J13) |
| marginal marriages (J12) | health outcomes of children (I14) |
| average marriages (J12) | health outcomes of children (I14) |