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Competing marital contracts? The marriage after civil union in France

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  • Marion Leturcq

    (CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - X - École polytechnique - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

Large changes in marital trends during the second half of the 20th century raise the question of the reason leading to marriage in Western Europe and in Northern America: declining marriage rates, increase in cohabitation, increasing divorce rates. But the reason to get married can be diverse and can evolve over the life cycle. This paper examines is there is a demand for different marital contracts. In France, since 1999, two types of marital contracts are available: the marriage and the civil union (pacs). This paper investigates the substitution between the two contracts, by analyzing the distribution of the age at first marriage by cohort. It detects some recent changes in the bottom of the distribution of the age at first marriage, indicating a small impact of pacs on marriage. Therefore, it tends to conclude that substitution effects are likely to be very small and that the pacs reveals a demand for different marital contracts.

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  • Marion Leturcq, 2011. "Competing marital contracts? The marriage after civil union in France," Working Papers halshs-00655585, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00655585
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00655585
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    7. Marion Leturcq, 2011. "Do bankers prefer married couples?," Working Papers halshs-00655584, HAL.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicolas Frémeaux & Marion Leturcq, 2013. "Plus ou moins mariés : l'évolution du mariage et des régimes matrimoniaux en France," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 462(1), pages 125-151.
    2. Shoshana Grossbard & Victoria Vernon, 2014. "Common law marriage and couple formation," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-26, December.

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    Keywords

    civil union; marriage; substitution; quantile regression;
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