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Divorce Law and Women's Labor Supply

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Author Info
Betsey Stevenson

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Abstract

Divorce law changes made in the 1970s affected marital formation, dissolution, and bargaining within marriage. By altering the terms of the marital contract these legal changes impacted the incentives for women to enter and remain in the labor force. Whereas earlier work had suggested that the impact of unilateral divorce on female employment depended critically on laws governing property division, I show that these results are not robust to alternative specifications and controls. I find instead that unilateral divorce led to an increase in both married and unmarried female labor force participation, regardless of the pre-existing laws regarding property division.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14346.

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Date of creation: Sep 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14346

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
K36 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Family and Personal Law
N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth

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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.:
  1. Leora Friedberg, 1998. "Did Unilateral Divorce Raise Divorce Rates? Evidence from Panel Data," NBER Working Papers 6398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. 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)
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  3. Ellman, Ira Mark & Lohr, Sharon L., 1998. "Dissolving the relationship between divorce laws and divorce rates," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 341-359, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Johnson, William R & Skinner, Jonathan, 1986. "Labor Supply and Marital Separation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 455-69, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Peters, H Elizabeth, 1986. "Marriage and Divorce: Informational Constraints and Private Contracting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 437-54, June.
  6. Scott Drewianka, 2008. "Divorce law and family formation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 485-503, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Shelly Lundberg & Elaina Rose, 1998. "The Determinants of Specialization Within Marriage," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 0048, Department of Economics at the University of Washington. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Imran Rasul, 2006. "Marriage Markets and Divorce Laws," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 30-69, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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.)

  1. Gonzalez, Libertad & Özcan, Berkay, 2008. "The Risk of Divorce and Household Saving Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 3726, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Libertad González Luna & Tarja Viitanen, 2008. "The Long Term Effects of Legalizing Divorce on Children," Economics Working Papers 1122, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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