Responsible researcher: Bruno Benevit
Author: Jonathan Gruber
Intervention Location: United States
Sample Size: 159,884 adults, 3,876 children
Sector: Family structure,Job Market
Variable of Main Interest: Marital Status, Education, Living Conditions
Type of Intervention: Legislative reform
Methodology: OLS, Negative Binomial Count Analysis
Summary
Several studies indicate that marital breakdown can negatively impact children. In this sense, the state reforms that made divorce more flexible in the United States in the 1970s become relevant interventions to assess the effects of divorce on individuals. The objective of this article was to identify the effects of the legislative introduction of unilateral divorce on different dimensions of parents and children of parents exposed to the new laws. Using several empirical strategies, the author identifies that exposure to unilateral divorce caused greater instability in the marital status of adults and their children, in addition to having a negative impact on the children's adult lives in terms of education, living conditions, job market and suicide rates..
The United States saw rapid growth in divorce rates in the post-war period. Several authors in sociology, developmental psychology and family economics suggest that marital breakdown can have negative consequences of divorce for children, both as children and later as adults. The advent of legislative changes that made unilateral divorce more flexible in the states in the early 1970s characterize relevant interventions in encouraging this phenomenon.
The main assumption underlying this movement is that regulations that increase the ease of divorce have negative implications for children. This line of argument involves three main assumptions: that the greater ease of divorce under state regulations has contributed to (or even entirely caused) the increase in the divorce rate in the United States that divorce is actually bad for children relative to the counterfactual of potentially maintaining damaged marriages, and that changes in divorce regulation have no other impact on families that would offset any direct influences through divorce, such as through the decision to enter into marriage or through changes in the nature of family bargaining . Existing evidence on the first of these assumptions is quite mixed, evidence on the second has yet to convincingly address possible selection biases associated with the divorce decision, and there is little empirical work on the third assumption.
Before the institutionalization of unilateral divorce, United States state regulations only provided for divorce between mutual partners and those motivated by infidelity or domestic violence. Carrying out divorces involved a very bureaucratic process due to the financial and emotional transaction costs linked to these forms. Furthermore, blame was seen as a tool often used by one of the spouses to make excessive agreements in the process. Therefore, the model of this law was considered inadequate and inefficient.
Such concerns motivated the reforms of divorce laws that took place after the 1960s in the United States. Some states initially made reforms in favor of no-fault divorce. Subsequently, several other states instituted unilateral divorce in the early 1970s. According to data from Gruber (2004), divorce rates in the country rose by more than 200% in just 15 years between 1960 and 1975. According to Weitzman (1985), although such reforms advocated improved efficiency in divorce processes, legislators did not pay attention to the social consequences of these changes.
During the 1970s unilateral divorce laws were passed in several states in the United States, which changed the basis for divorce from the fault of one spouse to general “irreconcilable differences” (Weitzman, 1985). Such legislative changes substantially reduced the costs associated with the divorce process, allowing one partner to separate without obtaining the other's consent. According to data from Gruber (2004), exposure to unilateral divorce laws in states was accompanied by a continued rise in divorce rates after the 1970s.
The data used in this study are derived from the Public Use Micro Samples (PUMS) of the 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990 United States censuses. The data report current state of residence and state of birth. The authors established 3 samples to carry out the analyses. The first contains information by state of residence and year for children aged 0 to 18, in addition to containing information on the marital status of the child's guardians. The second sample contains data by state/year/age for adults aged 25 to 50. The third sample is a refinement of the second, incorporating characteristics of birth state and sex. All regressions were weighted by cell size to replicate the respective microdata. Data were grouped into state/year/age cells for analysis. The first sample was used to analyze the impacts of unilateral divorces on their adult lives, while the second and third samples were used to observe the impact on their parents' divorce probabilities. All analyzes estimated effects separately for men and women, fathers and mothers.
The first analysis of this study evaluated how the legislative introduction of unilateral divorce affected the probability of parents being divorced, separated or never having married. Several models were estimated separately for adults and children living with either parent. Additionally, all previous models were replicated incorporating state-specific trend fixed effects.
The second analysis verified the effects of unilateral divorce on children's adult lives. The outcome variables considered included marital, educational, socioeconomic and work aspects. Models were estimated for individuals who were exposed to the intervention during childhood and for those who were exposed in adulthood. Again, models were estimated with and without state trend fixed effects.
The third analysis looked at whether exposure to unilateral divorce in childhood affected the number and rates of suicide (per 10,000 population) of children. Count analysis methods with Negative Binomial distribution were used for the number of suicides and the OLS method for the suicide rate. For this analysis, microdata available in Vital Statistics Mortality from the period 1978 to 1996 were used.
The fourth analysis is divided into two parts and considers the exposure time to unilateral divorce legislation, where the exposure time is divided into three intervals: 1 to 4 years, 5 to 8 years, and 9 or more years. The first part estimates the impact on the marital status of adults and children's parents. The second part estimates the impact on outcome variables in the adult life of individuals exposed to unilateral divorce during childhood.
Finally, the fifth analysis considers the time of exposure to legislation through an interaction variable between the binary variable identifying the legislation and the age of the individuals. For this analysis, only individuals who were at least 25 years old were considered.
The results of the first analysis indicate that the legislative introduction of unilateral divorce caused a significant increase of approximately 12% in the chance of divorce for both men and women. No significant results were found in the propensity to separate or never marry. Similar results were found when considering children.
The results of the second analysis present diverse evidence about the effect of unilateral divorce on children, especially those exposed in childhood. Regarding the impact on marital status variables, no effect was identified on the chances of divorce for children exposed during childhood, however an increase in the probability of being married was observed. There was also an average increase in the number of children for this same group. Regarding the impact on education, there was a significant decline of 0.6% in the years of schooling achieved by those exposed to unilateral divorce in their youth. Additionally, there has been a significant and sizable increase in the odds of graduating from high school and a correspondingly large decline in the odds of graduating from college. With respect to the impact on living standards and income, there was a clear reduction in per capita income and earnings of approximately 3.2% and 2.3%, respectively. No significant effects were identified on the number of weeks worked and the chance of working in the previous year. The results were similar for men and women.
The evidence found in the third analysis indicates that exposure to unilateral divorce resulted in significant increases in suicide rates. The number of suicides rose by 5% for women and 1.3% for men. Regarding the suicide rate, increases of approximately 10% for women and 5% for men were recorded, considerably high effects.
The results of the fourth analysis indicated the existence of heterogeneous effects in relation to the period of exposure to unilateral divorce. For the variables marital status and job offer, the impacts were similar for periods of 1 to 4 years and 5 to 8 years of exposure, however after 8 years the magnitude of the effects were considerably greater, with the exception of the propensity to divorce. A similar behavior was observed in most of the education, per capita income and income variables. These behaviors occurred for both men and women. In relation to income, however, there were reductions for women and increases for men.
The evidence from the analysis on the effects of the interaction between age and unilateral divorce indicated that exposure when young increases the chances of marriage and separation at younger ages, but such propensities reduce with advancing age. When exposure occurs in adulthood, the effects of age on the chance of divorce were less relevant for women compared to the effects for men.
This study analyzed the impacts of the various state legislative reforms that instituted unilateral divorce in the United States in the early 1970s. Through several empirical strategies, the article presents evidence that individuals exposed to these laws as children had lower educational levels and lower per capita income. An increase in marital instability was observed with an increase in the chances of marriages and separations occurring. The results also indicated that, as exposed women are less likely to enter the workforce, exposed men are proportionally more connected to the labor market. Both women and men exposed to unilateral divorce in childhood were more likely to commit suicide as adults. The results also indicate that the effects of childhood exposure on marital status occur mainly in early adulthood.
References
Gruber, J. (2004), “Is Making Divorce Easier Bad for Children? The Long‐Run Implications of Unilateral Divorce”, Journal of Labor Economics , Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 799–833.
Weitzman, Lenore. (1985), The divorce revolution, New York: Free Press.
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