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Marriage and Divorce since World War II: Analyzing the Role of Technological Progress on the Formation of Households

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  • Greenwood, Jeremy

    () (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Guner, Nezih

    () (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid)

Abstract

Since World War II there has been: (i) a rise in the fraction of time that married households allocate to market work, (ii) an increase in the rate of divorce, and (iii) a decline in the rate of marriage. It is argued here that labor-saving technological progress in the household sector can explain these facts. This makes it more feasible for singles to maintain their own home, and for married women to work. To address this question, a search model of marriage and divorce, which incorporates household production, is developed. An extension looks back at the prewar era.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3313.

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Date of creation: Jan 2008
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3313

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Keywords: household size; household production; hours worked; divorce; marriage; technological progress;

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References

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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Marxism & the mainstream
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2009-07-10 13:26:02
  2. Economic growth & family breakdown
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2007-06-13 09:01:18
  3. Why are marriage rates falling?
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2007-02-21 13:55:54
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