Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T18:55:00.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CREDIBLE COMMITMENTS AND MARRIAGE: WHEN THE HOMEMAKER GETS HER SHARE AT DIVORCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2016

Ho-Po Crystal Wong
Ho-Po Crystal Wong*
Affiliation:
National Tsing Hua University
*
Address correspondence to: Ho-Po Crystal Wong, Department of Economics, National Tsing Hua University, R513, CTM, No. 101, Section 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu, Taiwan; e-mail: [email protected].
Get access

Abstract:

A variety of states in the United States have adopted the “homemaking provision” in their divorce laws since the 1980s. The provision requires judges to recognize homemakers’ contribution to their marriages in dividing marital properties at divorce. I model the marital decisions of couples as a sequential game, in which the potential wife’s decision in whether to marry and specialize in home production depends on whether she is legally protected by the homemaking provision, as the law would reinforce her post-divorce property rights and therefore increase her bargaining power within the marriage. I use the variation in the timing of the passage of the homemaking provision to identify its effect on marriage. I find that the provision substantially increases marriages using both state- and individual-level data.

Keywords

Credible commitmentsdivorce lawdivorcehomemakersmarriageproperty rightsunilateral divorceD13J12J2
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 82 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 241 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Douglas W. (1992) Marriage and divorce: Comment. American Economic Review 82, 679–685.Google Scholar
Aura, Siow (2002) Uncommitted Couples: Some Efficiency and Policy Implications of Marital Bargaining. CESIFO working paper 801.Google Scholar
Baer, Judith A. (1996) Women in American Law: The Struggle Toward Equality from the New Deal to the Present. New York, London: Holmes & Meier Publishers.Google Scholar
Basu, Kaushik (2006) Gender and say: A model of household behaviour with endogenously determined balance of power. Economic Journal 116, 558–580.Google Scholar
Batts, Deborah A. (1988) Remedy refocus: In search of equity “enhanced spouse/other spouse” divorces. New York University Law Review 63, 751–808.Google Scholar
Bennett, Neil G., Bloom, David E. and Craig, Patrick H. (1989) The divergence of black and white marriage patterns. American Journal of Sociology 95, 692–722.Google Scholar
Brinig, Margaret F. and Buckley, Frank H. (1998) No-fault laws and at-fault people. International Review of Law and Economics 18, 325–340.Google Scholar
Buckles, Kasey S. and Price, Joseph (2013) Selection and the marriage premium for infant health. Demography 50, 1315–1339.Google Scholar
Cáceres-Delpiano, Julio and Giolito, Eigenio P. (2012) The impact of unilateral divorce on crime. Journal of Labor Economics 30, 215–248.Google Scholar
Case, Anne (1998) The effects of stronger child support enforcement on nonmarital fertility. In Garfinkel, Irwin, Mclanahan, Sara S., Meyer, Daniel R., and Seltzer, Judith A. (eds.), Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement, pp. 191–215. New York, NY: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Coen-Pirani, Daniele, León, Alexis, and Lugauer, Steven (2010) The effect of household appliances on female labor force participation: Evidence from microdata. Labour Economics 17, 503–513.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lloyd R. (1987) Marriage, divorce, and quasi rents: Or, “I gave him the best years of my life”. Journal of Legal Studies 16, 267–303.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lloyd R. (2002) Marriage: The long-term contract. In Dnes, Antony W. and Rowthorn, Robert (eds.), The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce, pp. 10–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dnes, Antony W. (1998) The division of marital assets following divorce. Journal of Law and Soceity 25, 336–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dnes, Antony W. and Rowthorn, Robert (2002) The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
England, Paula and Folbre, Nancy (1999) The cost of caring. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 561, 39–51.Google Scholar
Feerick, Dean J. (1986) Report of the New York task force on women in the courts. Fordham Urban Law Journal 15, 64–100.Google Scholar
Fineman, Martha L. (1989) Factors affecting the creation of legal rules for distribution of property at divorce. Family Law Quarterly 23, 279–299.Google Scholar
Friedberg, Leora (1998) Did unilateral divorce raise divorce rates? Evidence from panel data. American Economic Review 88, 608–627.Google Scholar
Gray, Jeffrey S. (1998) Divorce-law changes, household bargaining, and married women’ s labor supply. American Economic Review 88, 628–642.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Diane (1981, Oct. 25). More Women Seek Divorces in Equitable Settlement Law. New York Times, p. A1.Google Scholar
Greenwood, Jeremy, Seshadri, Ananth, and Yorukoglu, Mehmet (2005) Engines of liberation. Review of Economic Studies 72, 109–133.Google Scholar
Gruber, Jonathan (2004) Is making divorce easier bad for children? The long-run implications of unilateral divorce. Journal of Labor Economics 22, 799–833.Google Scholar
Halla, Martin (2013) The effect of joint custody on family outcomes. Journal of the European Economic Association 11, 278–315.Google Scholar
Hogue, Arthur R. (1985) Origins of the Common Law. Indianapolis: Liberty Press.Google Scholar
Iyavarakul, Tongyai, McElroy, Marjorie B., and Staub, Kalina (2011) Dynamic Optimization in Models for State Panel Data: A Cohort Panel Data Model of the Effects of Divorce Laws on Divorce Rates. Economic Research Initiatives at Duke working paper 140.Google Scholar
Iyigun, Murat (2005) Bargaining and Specialization in Marriage. IZA discussion paper 1744.Google Scholar
Jacob, Herbert (1988) Silent Revolution: The Transformation of Divorce Law in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, William R. and Skinner, Johnson (1986) Labor supply and marital separation. American Economic Review 76, 455–469.Google Scholar
Jones, Mary S. (1987) An Historical Geography of the Changing Divorce Law in the United States. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Kirk, Dudley (1960) The Influence of Business Cycles on Marriage and Birth Rates. NBER working paper 2388.Google Scholar
Klerman, Jacob A. and Haider, Steven J. (2004) A stock-flow analysis of the welfare caseload. Journal of Human Resources 8, 865–886.Google Scholar
Lundberg, Shelly and Pollak, Robert A. (2003) Efficiency in marriage. Review of Economics of the Household 1, 153–167.Google Scholar
Lundberg, Shelly (2008) Gender and household decision-making. In Bettio, Francesca and Verashchagina, Alina (eds.), Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, pp. 116–134. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Luton, Joseph P. and Smith, James P. (2003) Marriage, assets and savings. In Grossbard-Shechtman (ed.), Marriage and the Economy: Theory and Evidence From Advanced Industrial Societies, pp. 129—152. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Matouschek, Niko and Rasul, Imran (2008) The economics of the marriage contract: Theories and evidence. Journal of Law and Economics 51, 59–110.Google Scholar
Parkman, Allen M. (1992) Unilateral divorce and the labor force participation rate of married women, revisited. American Economic Review 82, 671–678.Google Scholar
Parkman, Allen M. (2000) Good Intentions Gone Awry: No-fault Divorce and the American Family. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Parkman, Allen M. (2002) “Mutual consent divorce?” In Dnes, Antony W. and Rowthorn, Robert (eds.), The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce, pp. 57—63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rasul, Imran (2003) The Impact of Divorce Laws on Marriage. Working paper. University of Chicago and CEPR.Google Scholar
Rasul, Imran (2006) Marriage markets and divorce laws. Journal of Law, Economics and Organiztion 22, 30–69.Google Scholar
Rose, Elaina and Wong, Ho-Po C. (2014) But Who Will Get Billy? The Effects of Child Custody Laws on Marriage. IZA working paper 9611.Google Scholar
Schoeni, Robert F. and Blank, Rebecca M. (2000) What has Welfare Reform Accomplished? Impacts on Welfare Participation, Employment, Income, Poverty, and Family Structure. NBER working paper 7627.Google Scholar
Scott, Elizabeth S. (2002) Marital commitment and regulation of divorce. In Dnes, Antony W. and Rowthorn, Robert (eds.), The Law and Economics of Marriage and Divorce, pp. 35—56. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sharp, Sally B. (1987) The partnership ideal: The development of equitable distribution in North Carolina. North Carolina Law Review 65, 195–255.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Betsey and Wolfers, Justin (2006) Bargaining in the shadow of the law: Divorce laws and family distress. Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, 267–288.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Betsey (2007) The impact of divorce laws on marriage-specific capital. Journal of Labor Economics 25, 75–93.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Betsey (2008) Divorce law and women’ s labor supply. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 5, 853–873.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voena, Alessandra (2015) Yours, mine and ours: Do divorce laws affect the intertemporal behavior of married couples? American Economic Review 105, 2295–2332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waite, Linda J. (1995) Does marriage matter? Demography 32, 483–507.Google Scholar
Weitzman, Lenore J. (1985) The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E. (1979) Transaction-cost economics: The governance of contractual relations. Journal of Law and Economics 22, 233–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfers, Justin (2006) Did unilateral divorce law raise divorce rates? A reconciliation and new results. American Economic Review 96, 1802–1820.Google Scholar
Wong, Ho-Po C. (2014) When Homemakers are Compensated: A Study of the Effects of Homemaking Provision in Property Division Following Divorce on Time Allocation of Married Couples. Working paper.Google Scholar