Unintended Consequences of Immigration Reform: Marriage Market, Intra-Household Bargaining, and Well-Being

Giulia Briselli and Wookun Kim

No 12222, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We examine the consequences of South Korea's 2008–10 immigration reforms on the marriage market and intra-household outcomes. The reforms unintentionally reduced foreign bride inflows. Exploiting regional variation in exposure to the reforms and using uniquely rich data—administrative records, household surveys, and registries—we find that the reforms resulted in fewer new marriages, increased women's intra-household bargaining power, shifted in women's time from housework to employment, and increased well-being for both spouses. Divorce rates fell, with a shift from general incompatibility to abuse-related grounds. These findings reveal the reforms' unintended impacts on household dynamics and broader economic implications.

Keywords: immigration; policy reform; marriage market; intra-household allocation; bar-gaining power; divorce (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 F22 J12 J16 K37 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12222.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12222

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().