Working Paper: NBER ID: w14346
Authors: Betsey Stevenson
Abstract: Divorce law changes made in the 1970s affected marital formation, dissolution, and bargaining within marriage. By altering the terms of the marital contract these legal changes impacted the incentives for women to enter and remain in the labor force. Whereas earlier work had suggested that the impact of unilateral divorce on female employment depended critically on laws governing property division, I show that these results are not robust to alternative specifications and controls. I find instead that unilateral divorce led to an increase in both married and unmarried female labor force participation, regardless of the pre-existing laws regarding property division.
Keywords: divorce law; women's labor supply; unilateral divorce
JEL Codes: D1; J1; J2; K36; N3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| threat of divorce (J12) | women's work decisions (J29) |
| unilateral divorce laws (K36) | women's labor force participation (J21) |
| unilateral divorce laws (K36) | married women's labor force participation (J21) |
| unilateral divorce laws (K36) | unmarried women's labor force participation (J49) |