IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8117.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Divorcing Upon Retirement: A Regression Discontinuity Study

Author

Listed:
  • Stancanelli, Elena G. F.

    (Paris School of Economics)

Abstract

The many facets of retirement have been studied widely by economists. However, the effect of retirement on marriage stability has been ignored in the literature. Retirement represents a dramatic change in individual time allocation that may affect marriage stability. In particular, individuals that grew up in traditional households in which the father did little domestic work and both spouses worked very long hours such as farmer household may find their marriage especially proven by the transition into retirement. We study the effect of retirement on marriage outburst rates using observations on over 200 000 French men and over 166 000 French women aged 50 to 70, drawn from the French Labor Force Surveys over the period 1990 to 2002. Due to reverse causality concerns, we instrument retirement in our divorce model by exploiting legal retirement age in France and applying a regression discontinuity approach. We find a significant increase in divorce rates which soar and almost double upon retirement for individuals of either gender that grew up in a traditional family environment such as a farmer household.

Suggested Citation

  • Stancanelli, Elena G. F., 2014. "Divorcing Upon Retirement: A Regression Discontinuity Study," IZA Discussion Papers 8117, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8117.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elena Stancanelli & Arthur Van Soest, 2012. "Retirement and Home Production: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 600-605, May.
    2. Jonathan Gruber & David Wise, 2005. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Fiscal Implications, Introduction and Summary," NBER Working Papers 11290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Michael Burda & Daniel Hamermesh & Philippe Weil, 2013. "Total work and gender: facts and possible explanations," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 239-261, January.
    4. Bruce Meyer & Wallace K. C. Mok, 2016. "Disability, Earnings, Income and Consumption," NBER Chapters, in: Social Insurance Programs (Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar, TAPES), National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2002. "Estimating the Effect of Financial Aid Offers on College Enrollment: A Regression-Discontinuity Approach," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1249-1287, November.
    6. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    7. 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.
    8. Gopi Shah Goda & John Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, "undated". "Social Security and the Timing of Divorce," Discussion Papers 08-057, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    9. Didier Blanchet & Louis-Paul Pele, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement in France," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security and Retirement around the World, pages 101-133, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Hans Bloemen & Elena Stancanelli, 2015. "Toyboys or supergirls? An analysis of partners’ employment outcomes when she outearns him," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 501-530, September.
    11. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 2007. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Fiscal Implications of Reform," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub07-1, May.
    12. Raquel Fernández & Alessandra Fogli & Claudia Olivetti, 2004. "Mothers and Sons: Preference Formation and Female Labor Force Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1249-1299.
    13. Wilbert Van Der Klaauw, 2008. "Regression–Discontinuity Analysis: A Survey of Recent Developments in Economics," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(2), pages 219-245, June.
    14. Nicolas Moreau & Elena Stancanelli, 2013. "Household Consumption at Retirement: A Regression Discontinuity Study on French," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 13072, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    15. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kolodziej, Ingo W.K. & García-Gómez, Pilar, 2019. "Saved by retirement: Beyond the mean effect on mental health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 85-97.
    2. Peter Eibich, 2014. "Understanding the Effect of Retirement on Health Using Regression Discontinuity Design," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 669, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Zang, Emma, 2020. "Spillover effects of a husband's retirement on a woman's health: Evidence from urban China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    4. Marco Bertoni & Giorgio Brunello, 2014. "Pappa Ante Portas: The Retired Husband Syndrome in Japan," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0182, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    5. Heller-Sahlgren, Gabriel, 2017. "Retirement blues," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 66-78.
    6. Bertoni, Marco & Brunello, Giorgio, 2017. "Pappa Ante Portas: The effect of the husband's retirement on the wife's mental health in Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 135-142.
    7. Chen, Xi, 2022. "The impact of spousal and own retirement on health: Evidence from urban China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    8. Ciani, Emanuele, 2016. "Retirement, pension eligibility and home production," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 106-120.
    9. Eibich, Peter, 2015. "Understanding the effect of retirement on health: Mechanisms and heterogeneity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-12.
    10. Léa Cimelli & Carole Bonnet & Anne Solaz, 2024. "Do late-life divorces produce greater gender inequalities? Evidence from administrative data," Working Papers 292, French Institute for Demographic Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stancanelli, Elena G. F. & van Soest, Arthur, 2012. "Joint Leisure Before and After Retirement: A Double Regression Discontinuity Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 6698, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Nicolas Moreau & Elena Stancanelli, 2015. "Household Consumption at Retirement : A Regression Discontinuity Study on French Data," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 117-118, pages 253-276.
    3. Nicolas Moreau & Elena Stancanelli, 2013. "Household Consumption at Retirement: A Regression Discontinuity Study on French," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 13072, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    4. Elena Stancanelli, 2012. "Spouses' Retirement and Hours of Work Outcomes : Evidence from Twofold Regression Discontinuity," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00755648, HAL.
    5. Stancanelli, Elena G. F., 2012. "Spouses' Retirement and Hours Outcomes: Evidence from Twofold Regression Discontinuity with Differences-in-Differences," IZA Discussion Papers 6791, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Elena Stancanelli, 2012. "Spouses' Retirement and Hours of Work Outcomes : Evidence from Twofold Regression Discontinuity," Post-Print halshs-00755648, HAL.
    7. Andrew E. Clark & Elena Stancanelli, 2016. "Individual Well-Being and the Allocation of Time Before and After the Boston Marathon Terrorist Bombing," PSE Working Papers hal-01302843, HAL.
    8. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    9. Steven F. Koch & Jeffrey S. Racine, 2016. "Healthcare facility choice and user fee abolition: regression discontinuity in a multinomial choice setting," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 179(4), pages 927-950, October.
    10. Mauricio Villamizar‐Villegas & Freddy A. Pinzon‐Puerto & Maria Alejandra Ruiz‐Sanchez, 2022. "A comprehensive history of regression discontinuity designs: An empirical survey of the last 60 years," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 1130-1178, September.
    11. Porter, Jack & Yu, Ping, 2015. "Regression discontinuity designs with unknown discontinuity points: Testing and estimation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 132-147.
    12. Jin-young Choi & Myoung-jae Lee, 2017. "Regression discontinuity: review with extensions," Statistical Papers, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1217-1246, December.
    13. Paweł Strzelecki & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2015. "Crowding (out) the retirees? RDD application to raising effective retirement age in Poland," Working Papers 2015-10, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    14. Eibich, Peter & Siedler, Thomas, 2020. "Retirement, intergenerational time transfers, and fertility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    15. Stancanelli, Elena G. F., 2016. "Couples' Retirement under Individual Pension Design: A Regression Discontinuity Study for France," IZA Discussion Papers 10322, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Rajeev Dehejia, 2013. "The Porous Dialectic: Experimental and Non-Experimental Methods in Development Economics," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-011, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Dehejia Rajeev, 2015. "Experimental and Non-Experimental Methods in Development Economics: A Porous Dialectic," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 47-69, June.
    18. Nicolas Moreau & Elena Stancanelli, 2015. "Household Consumption at Retirement: A Regression Discontinuity Study on French Data," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00881215, HAL.
    19. Paweł Strzelecki & Joanna Tyrowicz, 2015. "Crowding (out) the retirees? RDD application to raising effective retirement age in Poland," Working Papers 2015-10, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    20. Estefanía Galván, 2022. "Gender Identity and Quality of Employment," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(354), pages 409-436, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ageing; retirement; regression discontinuity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.