Based on panel data from 1997 to 2018, we investigate the socioeconomic preconditions and economic consequences of 'shared parenting (SP)' forms in Germany. Referring to the post-separation year, we build SP groups from information on child residence and fathers' childcare hours during a regular...

I look at the effects of making the exit costs of cohabitation as high as divorce on new and existing partnerships. I exploit the Family Law Amendment Act, introduced in Australia in 2008, as an exogenous shock to the cost of exiting cohabitation. This law defines cohabiting partnerships as de...

At the heart of economic and sociological thinking on divorce lies the idea that a couple divorces if at least one spouse expects to improve their life in doing so. De facto, divorces are predominantly initiated by one spouse alone. This might suggest that one spouse typically benefits from...

This paper uses a modified contractual model to study the role of religion-via entry and exit costs-in shaping preferences for getting and staying married. The religions that are analyzed are two "collective" religions: Judaism and Christianity. The paper takes a historical and contemporary look...

This paper seeks to explain the recent rise in U.S. divorce rates using an economic framework. Annual time series data from1920 to 1974 are used in the empirical analysis. The estimated equation tracks the actual series quite well. It attributes the recent increase in divorce to improved...

This paper revisits the evidence on the impact of unilateral divorce laws on divorce rates in the United States. Most states switched from requiring mutual consent to allowing unilateral or no-fault divorce between 1970 and 1985, while the national divorce rate more than doubled after 1965....

The Brexit ‘divorce bill’ is supposed to settle existing obligations, rather than cover the cost of any future agreements. Some therefore argue that it is simply a matter of honouring past debts and the UK should just pay up. The problem with this approach is that there is no legal certainty...

The UK is leaving the EU and needs to close its accounts. In a divorce, the two sides divide up the assets and liabilities. But the situation here is more like leaving a club, so the question is when the obligation to pay membership fees should end. One option would be simply be for the UK to...

Within the past few years, renewed interest in understanding marital behavior has resulted in a number of studies which focus on an equation estimating the probability of divorce or remarriage. This paper reports on one such effort. It offers a brief rationale for and an estimation of...

The aim of this article is to show how a 'traditional' society may produce a household system in which the structural tensions are no less intense than in the Western world. Muslim Hausa society (in northern Nigeria) has one of the highest rates of divorce (and remarriage) in the world. An...