Health Insurance and Marriage Behavior: Will Marriage Lock Hold Under Healthcare Reform?

Tianxu Chen ()

No 2019-10, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: Spousal healthcare coverage can potentially cause “marriage lock” in which couples stay married for the sake of health insurance benefits. However, the “marriage lock” effect may change under healthcare reforms. In this paper, I examine the impact of the 2006 Massachusetts healthcare reform on marriage and divorce decisions. I hypothesis that the individual mandate make people stay/get married to get health insurance, while the exchange markets will the reduce people’s reliance on marriage to get health insurance. Using American Community Survey data, I find that the 2006 healthcare reform increased incentives for marriage in Massachusetts relative to neighboring states. Specifically, the reform appears to have reduced the divorce rate by 0.5 percentage point and increased the marriage rate by 1.4 percentage points. These findings provide evidence that the “marriage lock” effect exists and it changes under healthcare reforms.

Keywords: Marriage Lock; Health Care Reform; Health Insurance Exchanges; Employer Sponsored Health Insurance; Marriage Behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 I1 J (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2019-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ias
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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