Working Paper Series,
IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: While divorce laws are known to influence family behavior, empirical evidence of their effects on children remains scarce. I shed more light on this by evaluating the Swedish divorce law reform of 1974, which i) liberalized the existing divorce laws and ii) implemented a 6-month parental reconsideration period for divorce. I exploit quasi-experimental policy variation and population-wide register data of 1.17 million Swedish children born 1952–1964 to evaluate the implications of family (in)stability on children’s long-term human capital outcomes. The evaluation suggests that exposure to more liberal divorce laws decreases the likelihood of graduating from upper secondary school by 5.6%. Evaluating the reconsideration period, I find that families with greater exposure to this reform element are 18.8%less likely to divorce. The exposed children are also 1.8% more likely to graduate from upper secondary school and have more stable marriage market outcomes as adults. The findings highlight a trade-off between parental freedom of choice related to divorce and externalities on children’s outcomes.

Keywords: Divorce law reform; Childrens outcomes; Family behavior

JEL-codes: D13; I24; J12; J13

Language: English

74 pages, June 14, 2024

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