This study evaluates the impact of an intimate partner violence prevention program in Rwanda, using a randomized controlled trial. The 22-week couples training program aimed to improve communication, shift gender attitudes, and promote gender equality. Randomizing at both the village and couple...

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...

Economic inequality remains a persistent and widely studied issue in the social sciences. South Korea provides a striking example where the top 23 business groups, controlled by ultra-wealthy, family-owned conglomerates (chaebols), have maintained significant economic persistence and resisted...

Since 1972, the General Social Survey has periodically asked whether people are happy with Yes, Maybe or No type answers. Here I use a net "happiness" measure, which is percentage Yes less percentage No with Maybe treated as zero. Average happiness is around +20 on this scale for all respondents...

This work examines the effect of next-generation broadband on marriage rates among opposite- and same-sex couples in Spain. Given that the decision to sustain a relationship and enter into marriage is influenced by a broad spectrum of opportunities, high-speed broadband access can play a pivotal...

Due to a lack of attention in research to draw a connection between couple businesses and their existence as a form of startup teams, this paper aims to provide deeper insights into the structure and behavior of copreneurial couples in startups. This lack needs to be addressed due to the...

Can lowering barriers to public services reduce domestic violence? Exploiting the introduction of a non-mandatory police reporting policy, I find that it significantly reduces domestic violence cases reported to the police while increasing hospital-reported cases of domestic assault. I further...

This paper revisits the link between education-based marriage market sorting and income inequality. Leveraging Danish administrative data, we develop a novel categorization of "ambition types" that is based on starting wages and wage growth trajectories associated with detailed educational...

This paper studies how family and firm investments interact to explain gender gaps in career achievement. Using Danish administrative data, we first document novel evidence of this interaction through a "spousal effect" on firm-side career investments. This effect is accounted for by family...

This paper investigates how a change in marital status can influence labour market-related child penalties, by comparing married couples and those whose marriage is dissolved after the birth of their first child. We take advantage of the rich administrative data from New Zealand and show that...

Many nations have experienced both rising education levels and declining marriage rates. However, cross-sectional comparisons within countries often indicate that more highly educated individuals are more likely to be married. Economic theory suggests ambiguous causal effects of education on...

This paper exploits an education policy in India generated by a 2010 schooling reform to examine the effect of education on women's family planning decisions. The key element of the reform was that it required students to complete eight years of primary education (age 6-14 years). I employ an...

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...

This paper studies how family and firm investments interact to explain gender gaps in career achievement. Using Danish administrative data, we first document novel evidence of this interaction through a “spousal effect” on firm-side career investments. This effect is accounted for by family...

An often neglected implication of couple taxation is its impact on marital sorting. A tractable model of such an impact is offered in this paper. It reveals that, as compared to joint taxation with income splitting, individual taxation makes higher-ability individuals more picky in the marriage...

Accurate measurement of intimate partner violence is challenging in face-to-face interviews due to concerns about anonymity and privacy, which can deter disclosure. In settings with high illiteracy, self-administered surveys are also impractical. To tackle these issues, this study adapted...

We study the effect of having an older sister on the likelihood that girls in sub-Saharan Africa marry before reaching adulthood. Relying on the randomness of the firstborn sibling's sex, we show that having an older sister (as opposed to an older brother) reduces the likelihood of marrying...

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 empirically examine the causal impact of women's financial inclusion on their exposure to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in India using data from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey. However, establishing a causal link between women's financial inclusion and IPV is...

We investigate how job displacement affects whom men marry and study implications for marriage market matching theory. Leveraging quasi-experimental variation from Danish establishment closures, we show that job displacement leads men to break up if matched with low-earning women and to re-match...

We study partnership sorting by education, the profile of wealth accumulation and the implications for wealth inequality for two cohorts born in 1947-1953 and 1973-1979 using the Wealth and Assets Survey for Great Britain. Our findings suggest individuals positively sort by education relative to...

This paper explores how historical gender roles become entrenched as norms over the long run. In the historical United States, gender roles on the frontier looked starkly different from those in settled areas. Male-biased sex ratios led to higher marriage rates for women and lower for men. Land...

Gender gaps in labor supply and household responsibilities persist. Using representative survey data from 24,000 respondents across six countries, this paper explores the actual and perceived preferences of men for couple equity. We document that in all six countries the majority of men state...

This paper examines the long-term effects of early sports selection using a regression discontinuity design. I show that Swedish track and field athletes who qualified for a one-time appearance with the junior national team at age 17 are less likely to quit sports and more likely to improve...

We revisit the issue of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) during the COVID-19 pandemic asking three questions: whether IPV increased with lockdown, what pandemic-specific 'shocks' or 'stressors' had the greatest impact and how the results change when different measures of IPV are used. Leveraging...