Supporting working mothers to balance their work and childcare responsibilities is a central objective of maternal and parental leave policies. Nearly all countries offer some forms of maternity and family leave programs for childbearing on a national basis. This chapter reviews various types of...

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you read the headline: ’Increasing red meat intake linked with heightened risk of early death?’ It probably depends on what you were thinking on meat intake patterns and how you were feeling about the word ’death’ before you started...

Many countries have enacted legislation over the past few decades making divorce easier. Some countries have legalized divorce where it had previously been banned, and many have eased the conditions required for a divorce, such as allowing unilateral divorce (both spouses do not have to agree on...

Custody laws governing living arrangements for children following their parents' divorce have changed dramatically since the 1970s. Traditionally, one parent - usually the mother - was assigned sole custody of the child. Today, many divorced parents continue to share parental rights and...

Since the 1970s almost all states have introduced a form of joint custody after divorce. We analyze the causal effect of these custody law reforms on the incidence of marriage and divorce. Our identification strategy exploits the different timing of reforms across states and the control group of...

We document key facts about marriage and divorce, comparing trends through the past 150 years and outcomes across demographic groups and countries. While divorce rates have risen over the past 150 years, they have been falling for the past quarter century. Marriage rates have also been falling,...

We document key facts about marriage and divorce, comparing trends through the past 150 years and outcomes across demographic groups and countries. While divorce rates have risen over the past 150 years, they have been falling for the past quarter century. Marriage rates have also been falling,...

In addition to regular marriage, Australia, Brazil, and 11 US states recognize common law (or de facto) marriage, which allows one or both cohabiting partners to claim, under certain conditions, that an informal union is a marriage. France and some other countries also have several types of...

The present paper investigates how parents responsible for child maintenance payments have re sponded to changes in the amount of obligations. The potential endogeneity of child support obligations is addressed by using SOEP panel data from 1985-2013 and applying individual FE-IV models. Results...

Southern Europe`s rapid fertility decline has resulted in a positive cross-country correlation between female labor force participation and fertility. We develop a model with heterogeneity in attitudes towards women`s home time and a social externality associated to men`s home production to...