IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/reapec/264604.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The High Cost Of Specialization: Labor Market Outcomes Following Divorce

Author

Listed:
  • Malcolm, Michael
  • Abdurrahman, Zainab

Abstract

This article studies labor market transitions following divorce. Using US data, we show that absence from the labor force during marriage is associated with a lower probability of employment following divorce. For women, the effect is large initially – a 14.5% decline in probability of finding a job after divorce for each year out of the labor force during marriage. The effect dissipates over time, but there is long-run persistence. For men, the effect of comparable absences from the labor force is smaller and transitory. The presence of children also lowers labor market participation of women following divorce.

Suggested Citation

  • Malcolm, Michael & Abdurrahman, Zainab, 2014. "The High Cost Of Specialization: Labor Market Outcomes Following Divorce," Review of Applied Economics, Lincoln University, Department of Financial and Business Systems, vol. 10(1-2), January.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:reapec:264604
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.264604
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/264604/files/MalcolmAbdurrahman.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/264604/files/MalcolmAbdurrahman.pdf?subformat=pdfa
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.264604?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Betsey Stevenson, 2007. "The Impact of Divorce Laws on Marriage-Specific Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 75-94.
    2. Marika Jalovaara, 2003. "The joint effects of marriage partners’ socioeconomic positions on the risk of divorce," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(1), pages 67-81, February.
    3. Ruhm, Christopher J, 1991. "Are Workers Permanently Scarred by Job Displacements?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 319-324, March.
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, March.
    5. Claudia Goldin, 1994. "The U-Shaped Female Labor Force Function in Economic Development and Economic History," NBER Working Papers 4707, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Kraft, Kornelius, 2001. "Unemployment and the Separation of Married Couples," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 67-87.
    7. Jensen, Peter & Smith, Nina, 1990. "Unemployment and Marital Dissolution," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 3(3), pages 215-229, October.
    8. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 27-52, Spring.
    9. James J. Heckman & Dimitriy V. Masterov, 2007. "The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children ," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 29(3), pages 446-493.
    10. Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Changes in Women's Hours of Market Work: The Role of Returns to Experience," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 557-587, October.
    11. Chiswick, Barry R, 1986. "Labor Supply and Investment in Child Quality: A Study of Jewish and Non-Jewish Women," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(4), pages 700-703, November.
    12. Raphaela Hyee & Julio R. Robledo, 2009. "Specialization in the Bargaining Family," Working Papers 640, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    13. Wendy Sigle-Rushton, 2010. "Men's Unpaid Work and Divorce: Reassessing Specialization and Trade in British Families," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 1-26.
    14. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Yoram Weiss, 2006. "Divorce, Remarriage, and Welfare: A General Equilibrium Approach," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 415-426, 04-05.
    15. Raphaela Hyee & Julio R. Robledo, 2009. "Specialization in the Bargaining Family," Working Papers 640, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    16. González, Libertad, 2004. "Single Mothers and Work," IZA Discussion Papers 1097, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Pamela Smock, 1993. "The economic costs of marital disruption for Young Women over the past two decades," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(3), pages 353-371, August.
    18. Raquel Fernández & Alessandra Fogli & Claudia Olivetti, 2004. "Mothers and Sons: Preference Formation and Female Labor Force Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1249-1299.
    19. Shinobu Takada, 2011. "Factors Determining the Employment of Single Mothers," Japanese Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 105-123.
    20. Johnson, William R & Skinner, Jonathan, 1986. "Labor Supply and Marital Separation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 455-469, June.
    21. Nicolas Jacquemet & Jean-Marc Robin, 2013. "Assortative matching and search with labor supply and home production," CeMMAP working papers CWP07/13, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    22. Kornelius Kraft, 2001. "Unemployment and the Separation of Married Couples," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 67-88, February.
    23. Schönberg, Uta & Ludsteck, Johannes, 2007. "Maternity Leave Legislation, Female Labor Supply, and the Family Wage Gap," IZA Discussion Papers 2699, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Trisha Chanda, 2023. "Economic Wellbeing and Labor Supply Patterns of Subsequently Divorcing Mothers in Wisconsin," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 821-835, December.
    2. Gert Thielemans & Dimitri Mortelmans, 2019. "Female Labour Force Participation After Divorce: How Employment Histories Matter," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 180-193, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bellido, Héctor & Molina, José Alberto & Solaz, Anne & Stancanelli, Elena, 2016. "Do children of the first marriage deter divorce?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 15-31.
    2. Daniele Vignoli & Anna Matysiak & Marta Styrc & Valentina Tocchioni, 2018. "The positive impact of women’s employment on divorce: Context, selection, or anticipation?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(37), pages 1059-1110.
    3. Marcus Eliason, 2012. "Lost jobs, broken marriages," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 1365-1397, October.
    4. Daniel Avdic & Arizo Karimi, 2018. "Modern Family? Paternity Leave and Marital Stability," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 283-307, October.
    5. Delia Furtado & Miriam Marcén & Almudena Sevilla, 2013. "Does Culture Affect Divorce? Evidence From European Immigrants in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(3), pages 1013-1038, June.
    6. Denise Doiron & Silvia Mendolia, 2012. "The impact of job loss on family dissolution," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 367-398, January.
    7. Letizia Mencarini & Daniele Vignoli, 2014. "Women’s employment makes unions more stable, if the male partners contribute to the unpaid household work," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2014_06, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    8. Kraft, Kornelius & Neimann, Stefanie, 2009. "Effect of Labor Division between Wife and Husband on the Risk of Divorce: Evidence from German Data," IZA Discussion Papers 4515, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Michael Malcolm, 2012. "A noncooperative marriage model with remarriage," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 133-151, March.
    10. Ausra Maslauskaite & Aiva Jasilioniene & Domantas Jasilionis & Vladislava Stankuniene & Vladimir Shkolnikov, 2015. "Socio-economic determinants of divorce in Lithuania: Evidence from register-based census-linked data," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(30), pages 871-908.
    11. Yukichika Kawata, 2008. "Does High Unemployment Rate Result in a High Divorce Rate?: A Test for Japan," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, November.
    12. Alessandra Voena, 2015. "Yours, Mine, and Ours: Do Divorce Laws Affect the Intertemporal Behavior of Married Couples?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2295-2332, August.
    13. Letizia Mencarini & Daniele Vignoli, 2014. "Woman's employment makes unions more stable, if the partner contributes to the unpaid work," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 377, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    14. Matthijs Kalmijn, 2005. "The Effects of Divorce on Men’s Employment and Social Security Histories," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 347-366, December.
    15. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    16. Greenwood, Jeremy & Guner, Nezih & Santos, Cezar & Kocharakov, Georgi, 2015. "Technology and the Changing Family: A Unified Model of Marriage, Divorce, Educational Attainment and Married Female Labor-Force," CEPR Discussion Papers 10434, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. González, Libertad & Viitanen, Tarja K., 2009. "The effect of divorce laws on divorce rates in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 127-138, February.
    18. Uwe Jirjahn, Cornelia Struewing, 2018. "Single Motherhood in East and West Germany: What Can Explain the Differences?," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 15(2), pages 197-229, December.
    19. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Georgi Kocharkov & Cezar Santos, 2016. "Technology and the Changing Family: A Unified Model of Marriage, Divorce, Educational Attainment, and Married Female Labor-Force Participation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 1-41, January.
    20. Amit Kaplan & Anat Herbst-Debby, 2018. "Fragile Employment, Liquid Love: Employment Instability and Divorce in Israel," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(1), pages 1-31, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:reapec:264604. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aelinnz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.