In this paper we study the relationship between fertility and divorce. The potential endogeneity of fertility in divorce decisions is explicitly addressed by modelling fertility and divorce jointly. We apply the "timing-of-event" method (Abbring & van den Berg (2002)) to identify the causal effect of births on the divorce hazard. We show that couples who are less prone to divorce are more prone to invest in children, and therefore one might (mistakenly) conclude that children tend to stabilize marriages. However, when correcting for endogeneity of fertility, we conclude that children themselves do not have a positive effect on marriage duration.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus in its series Economics Working Papers with number
2003-3.
Svarer, Michael & Verner, Mette, 2003.
"Do Children Stabilize Marriages?,"
Working Papers
03-4, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables
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