The Impact of Unilateral Divorce on Crime * In this paper, we evaluate the impact of unilateral divorce on crime. First, using crime rates from the FBI's Uniform Crime Report program for the period 1965-1998 and differences in the timing in the introduction of the reform, we find that unilateral divorce has a positive impact on violent crime rates, with an 8% to 12% average increase for the period under consideration. Second, arrest data not only confirms the findings of a positive impact on violent crime but also shows that this impact is concentrated among those age groups (15 to 24) that are more likely to engage in these type of offenses. Specifically, for the age group 15-19, we observe an average impact over the period under analysis of 40% and 36% for murder and aggravated assault arrest rates, respectively. Disaggregating total arrest rates by race, we find that the effects are driven by the Black sub-sample. Third, using the age at the time of the divorce law reform as a second source of variation to analyze age-specific arrest rates we confirm the positive impact on the different types of violent crime as well as a positive impact for property crime rates, controlling for all confounding factors that may operate at the stateyear, state age or age-year level. The results for murder arrests and for homicide rates (Supplemental Homicide Report) for the 15-24 age groups are robust with respect to specifications and specifically those that include year-state and year-age dummies. The magnitude goes from 15% to 40% depending on the specification and the age at the time of the reform. IntroductionFamily as institution has undergone a "complete make-over" in the U.S. and in the Western Hemisphere during the last fifty years. Institutional and technological changes such as abortion and contraceptive methods have not only changed the gender roles (Goldin and Katz, 2002) but also the family backgrounds faced by the new generations. Children as never before are as likely to growth up in a one parent or a blended family, or with a working mother. Among the most important institutional changes was the reform in divorce legislation to the extent that it has been called the "Divorce Revolution". Specifically, unilateral divorce, the right of one spouse to ask for a divorce without the consent of the other, is the aspect of the reform that has captured the greatest attention in the literature during the last twenty years. 1Initially, the scholarly debate was focused on the impact of unilateral divorce on divorce rates (Peters, 1986;Friedberg, 1998;Gruber, 2004). Nowadays, there is growing consensus in the literature regarding a short-term increase in divorce rates (Wolfers, 2006). This evidence has been related by scholars to a greater selection into and out of marriage in adopting states, and therefore to an increase in the average match-quality of new and surviving marriages.2 Despite the direct effects of unilateral divorce on divorce rates, recent research has focused on the role of the reform in several ...
Among first marriages in the United States, grooms are on average 1.7 years older than their brides. Traditionally, this fact is explained by sex differences in income. We use a general equilibrium, overlapping generations search model economy to show instead that sex differences in fecundity are essential to account for the age gap at first marriage, whereas sex differences in income play a secondary role. Our model economy also accounts for other facts on the timing of first marriages that the literature has overlooked. *
Using a regression discontinuity design and public educational administrative data for Chile, this chapter studies the impact of age at school entry on children’s outcomes. In contrast to previous studies, the authors are able to track this impact on school achievement over 11 years of the school life of a cohort of students. The results confirm previous findings that a higher age at entry has a positive effect on grade point average (GPA) and the likelihood of passing a grade, but also that this impact tends to wear off over time. However, we also find that this impact on school achievement is still present 11 years after a child has started school.
Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S Early Impacts of College Aid ABSTRACT Early Impacts of College Aid *We analyze the impact of an expansion in government-guaranteed credit for higher education in Chile on a sample of elementary and high school students. Using students who had an alternative source of funding as a control group, and administrative records before and after the reform, we present evidence that students most likely to attend college in a future are affected in different ways. First, we show that parents of students who ex ante were more likely to be credit restricted became more likely after the reform to state that their child would end up completing college. Second, we find that relaxing credit restrictions reduces the probability of dropping out of high school, specifically among top students originally enrolled in low-performance schools and low-performance students attending better schools. Third, we find that the reform led to an increase in educational sorting. Best students switch to better schools while low-performance students go to lower-ranked schools. This sorting helps to explain why we observe a decrease (increase) in GPA and an increase (decrease) in grade repetition among better (worse) students. Then, for a sample of students that were in transition from elementary to secondary school, we show that good students are more likely to enroll in a college-oriented track. Finally, using household data and birth records aggregated at the municipal level, we find, consistent with previous findings, a reduction in teen pregnancy.JEL Classification: I28, J13
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.