The effect of marital breakup on the income distribution of women with children
By: Elizabeth O. Ananat and Guy Michaels
Contributors: Michaels, Guy; London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance
Series: CEP discussion paper -- no. 787
Publisher: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science
Published: 2007
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] /
Description: Having a female firstborn child significantly increases the probability that a woman's first marriage breaks up. Recent work has exploited this exogenous variation to measure the effect of marital breakup on economic outcomes, and has concluded that divorce has little effect on women's average household income. Employing an Abadie (2003) technique that allows us to look at the impact of marital breakup throughout the income distribution, however, we find that divorce greatly increases the probability that a woman lives in a household with income in the bottom quartile. While women partially offset the loss of spousal earnings with child support, welfare, combining households, and substantially increasing their labor supply, divorce significantly increases the odds that a woman with children is poor.
Notes: Title from publisher's abstract page (viewed on July 6, 2007).

"April 2007."

Includes bibliographical references.

Also available in print.

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