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Working Paper
Improving Child Welfare in Middle Income Countries: The Unintended Consequence of a Pro-Homemaker Divorce Law and Wait Time to Divorce
This study identifies the impact of access to and the speed of divorce on the welfare of children in a middle income largely Catholic country. Using difference-in-difference estimation techniques, I compare school enrollment for children of married and cohabiting parent households before and after the legalization of divorce. Implementing pro-homemaker divorce laws increased school enrollment anywhere from 3.4 to 5.5 percentage points, and the effect was particularly salient on secondary school students. I provide evidence that administrative processes influencing the speed of divorce affect ...
The Effect of Divorce on Workers’ Incomes
An analysis of census data reveals that workers who experienced a divorce in the past 12 months typically earned less than those who didn’t.
Working Paper
Joint Child Custody and Interstate Migration
Joint custody following divorce is widespread, yet the implementation of joint custody is costly when individuals live in different states, so it affects interstate mobility. Migration of divorced fathers has fallen significantly more than that of married fathers. We show the causal effect of joint custody using two strategies. First, we survey divorced parents to elicit beliefs about the likelihood of interstate moves. Second, we use the staggered adoption of joint custody laws across U.S. states, and show a reduction in actual migration of 11 percentage points for fathers. For mothers, ...