An empirical analysis of the effect of labour market characteristics on marital dissolution rates

The development in the 1960s of the divorce rate is strikingly similar for the USA and Denmark where the rate in both cases increases very fast from 1967-68 until the mid 1970s. Using time series data for the USA and Denmark the relationship between the divorce rate and genderspecific labor market characteristics is analysed by using Granger causality tests and by estimating VAR-models including impulse response functions. Historically, the female labor force participation rate increases before the structural shift in the divorce rate and for both the analyzed countries the analysis suggests that the female labor force participation rate has some influence on the divorce rate.