Sex Preferences, Marital Dissolution and the Economic Status of Women

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Sex Preferences, Marital Dissolution and the Economic Status of Women

Author Info

Kelly Bedard (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Olivier Deschenes (University of California, Santa Barbara)

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Abstract

The rise in the divorce rate over the past 40 years is one of the fundamental changes in American society. A seemingly ever-increasing number of women and children spend some fraction of their life in single female-headed households, leading many to be concerned about the economic circumstances of these women their and children. Estimating the cause-to-effect relationship between marital dissolution and female economic status is complicated because the same factors that increase marital instability may also affect the economic status and labor market behavior of women. We propose an instrumental variables solution to this problem based on the sex of the firstborn child. This strategy exploits the fact that the sex of the firstborn child is random and the fact that marriages are less likely to survive following the birth of girls as opposed to boys. Our IV estimates cast doubt on the contention that marital instability causes large declines in woman's economic status. Once the negative selection into divorce is accounted for, we find that women who have experienced marital dissolution have considerably higher levels of personal income and annual wages than women who remain married. At the same time we find little evidence of differential poverty rates and equivalized household incomes among ever-divorced women and never-divorced women. We further show that the higher wages of ever-divorced women mostly reflect increased labor supply intensity (hours and weeks of work) of woman who experienced marital dissolution.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara in its series University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series with number 6-03.

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Date of creation: 15 Jun 2003
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Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:6-03

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

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Other versions:
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," NBER Working Papers 12944, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
- Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," IZA Discussion Papers 2602, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
- Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2007. "Marriage and divorce: changes and their driving forces," Working Paper Series 2007-03, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
- Stevenson, Betsey & Wolfers, Justin, 2007. "Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces," CEPR Discussion Papers 6144, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
- 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.
Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2003. "Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress," NBER Working Papers 10175, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
- Stevenson, Betsey & Wolfers, Justin, 2003. "Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress," Research Papers 1828, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. [Downloadable!]
- Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 121(1), pages 267-288, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Andrew Leigh, 2006. "Does Child Gender Affect Marital Status?," CEPR Discussion Papers 526, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
Robert Drago & David Black & Mark Wooden, 2006. "Who Wants Flexibility? Changing Work Hours Preferences and Life Events," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2006n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
- Robert Drago & Mark Wooden & David Black, 2006. "Who Wants Flexibility? Changing Work Hours Preferences and Life Events," IZA Discussion Papers 2404, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
Laura Giuliano, . "The Demand for Sons or the Demand for Fathers? Understanding the Effects of Child Gender on Divorce Rates," Working Papers 0724, University of Miami, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
Kerry L. Papps, 2006. "The Effects of Divorce Risk on the Labour Supply of Married Couples," IZA Discussion Papers 2395, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]

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