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...

This paper examines the causal effects of a major change in the German parental leave benefits on fertility. I use the unanticipated reform of 2007 to assess how a move from a means-tested to an earnings-related benefit affects higher-order births. By using data from the Mikrozensus, I find that...

If participation in the labor market helps to secure women's outside options in the case of divorce/separation, an increase in the perceived risk of marital dissolution may accelerate the increase in female labor supply. This simple prediction has been tested in the literature using time and/or...

This paper examines the effects of a major change in German parental transfer system on fertility. I use the largely unanticipated reform of 2007 as a natural experiment to assess how an earnings-dependent parental leave benefit effects higher-order fertility. Given the recent introduction, this...

Having a child out of wedlock used to be associated with shame and scorn. This is mostly not the case anymore in the western world. Therefore, freed from social sanctions, single motherhood has become an additional family-choice alternative for women, along with marriage and childlessness. Yet,...

Does single motherhood adversely affect infant health? This question is not easy to answer because of the endogeneity of coresidence during pregnancy. In this paper, we exploit quasi-natural variation in single motherhood from the moment of conception to that of birth arising from marriageable...

This article covers the following topics: 1. Gendered socio-economic inequality 1.1. Socio-economic inequalities between men and women 1.1.1. Inequality in labour force participation 1.1.2. Inequality in wage and position 1.1.3. Inequalities during career 1.1.4. Inequalities within the household...

Reforms that reduce alimony can affect married couples in two different ways. First, reduced alimony lowers the bargaining power of the payee, usually the wife. Second, reduced alimony lowers the incentives of wives to engage in the traditional male breadwinner model of household specialization....

During the Second World War, fraudulent recruiters sometimes promised young Korean women factory jobs but sent them instead to war-zone brothels called "comfort stations." Western historians take it on faith that the Japanese military forced Korean women into brothels as well. Unfortunately, in...

The work continues a larger project that supplies a detailed account of, and engagement with, important aspects of what transpired during the Supreme Court phase of the litigation in the LGBT Title VII sex discrimination cases. The larger project provides a deep context for understanding the...