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Changing the Rules Midway: The Impact of Granting Alimony Rights on Existing and Newly-Formed Partnerships

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  • Jeanne Lafortune
  • Pierre-Andre Chiappori
  • Murat Iyigun
  • Yoram Weiss

Abstract

The paper analyzes the effect of a reform granting alimony rights to cohabiting couples in Canada, exploiting the fact that each province extended these rights in different years and required different cohabitation length. A theoretical analysis, based on a collective household model with a matching framework, predicts that changes in alimony laws would affect existing couples and couples to-be differently. For existing couples, legislative changes aimed at favoring (wo)men do benefit them, especially if the match quality is low. However, for couples not yet formed, they generate offsetting intra-household transfers (in our model, of leisure) and lower intra-marital allocations for the spouses who are the intended beneficiary. Our empirical analysis confirms these predictions. Among cohabiting couples united long enough before the reform, obtaining the right to petition for alimony led women to lower their labor force participation. These results, however, do not hold | and, in some cases, are reversed for newly formed cohabiting couples.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeanne Lafortune & Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Murat Iyigun & Yoram Weiss, 2012. "Changing the Rules Midway: The Impact of Granting Alimony Rights on Existing and Newly-Formed Partnerships," Documentos de Trabajo 424, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
  • Handle: RePEc:ioe:doctra:424
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Alimony; Cohabitation; Bargaining; Policy neutrality; Labor supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • K36 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Family and Personal Law

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