Families play an important role in providing insurance against adverse shocks, but little is known about how shocks affect the family structure itself. We study the impact of a labor market shock on divorce and intra-household allocation of resources, exploiting a naturalexperimental earthquake...

We analyze the impact of unexpected health shocks—defined as the sudden diagnosis of cancer, stroke, or heart attack—on the probability of couple dissolution using longitudinal representative data on older individuals (50+). We leverage the longitudinal nature of the HRS and utilize a...

We analyze the impact of unexpected health shocks - defined as the sudden diagnosis of cancer, stroke, or heart attack - on the probability of couple dissolution using longitudinal representative data on older individuals (50+). We leverage the longitudinal nature of the HRS and utilize a...

Using a life-cycle model of household consumption and investment under family transitions, we investigate the long-run financial outcomes of divorces. We find divorce leads to a reduction in wealth, and the loss is larger for higher-educated women. Earlier fertility and a smaller parenthood...