The age at which women enter first marriage is known to be a major factor in marital instability. But to date possible differences by race/ ethnicity have not been examined. We use data from the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth to examine differences by race/ethnicity in the shape of...

This paper surveys some of the main strands in the recent literature on the economics of divorce, with a focus on U.S. studies. We begin with a discussion of changes over time in the divorce rate and the widening gap in marital instability by socioeconomic status. We review the role of age at...

This paper uses Danish register-based data for the population of children born in 1990-1997 to investigate the effects on parents of having a child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity-disorder (ADHD). Ten years after birth, parents of children diagnosed with ADHD have a 75% higher probability...

In most Western economies, the flourishing of the Welfare State has coincided with a decline of the role of the family: divorce has been introduced, and the number of marriages has decreased. We suggest that a taboo against divorce was part of the informal safety net in a period when social...

We analyze the impact of an increase in the risk of divorce on the saving behaviour of married couples. From a theoretical perspective, the expected sign of the effect is ambiguous. We take advantage of the legalization of divorce in Ireland in 1996 as an exogenous increase in the likelihood of...

We estimate the effect of divorce legalization on the long-term well-being of children. Our identification strategy relies on exploiting the different timing of divorce legalization across European countries. Using European Community Household Panel data, we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts...

We develop a two-sided matching model with positive sorting, divorce and remarriage. Match quality for each couple is revealed ex post and those with poor draws divorce. Competition determines lifetime expected utilities but per-period utilities depend on the laws that govern the distribution of...