The Divorce Revolution and Generalized Trust: Evidence from the United States 1973-2010

Tarja Viitanen

No 7966, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of exposure to a culture of easier divorce as a minor on generalized trust using the General Social Survey from 1973-2010. The easier divorce culture is defined as the introduction of no-fault including unilateral divorce reforms across the US. According to the results, the divorce revolution seems to have had some effect on trust levels across the US. While there are no discernible effects for the whole sample of men, there are statistically significant effects for women with an additional year of exposure being associated with a 4 percentage point lower generalized trust in the states with easy divorce culture compared to states with fault based divorce culture. An analysis by sub-group of women indicates that married and divorced/separated women have significantly lower levels of trust associated with exposure to easy divorce culture as a child. The findings are in agreement with the predictions of previous literature regarding no-fault divorce reforms reducing the security offered by marriage, in particular for women.

Keywords: trust; GSS; panel data analysis; divorce laws (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 K36 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2014-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-evo, nep-his, nep-law and nep-soc
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Published - published in: International Review of Law and Economics, 2014, 38, 25-32

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Journal Article: The divorce revolution and generalized trust: Evidence from the United States 1973–2010 (2014)
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