Sex Ratios, Divorce Laws and the Marriage Market

Brishti Guha ()

No 28-2010, Working Papers from Singapore Management University, School of Economics

Abstract: We show how an interaction between the skewness of the sex ratio and the jump in divorce rates after a liberalization in divorce laws can obtain in a model of marriage market matching with non-transferable utility. This model is partly motivated by a significant cross-country correlation between these two variables. We also find that men’s hopes or fears about women’s marriage market odds are self-confirming under mutual consent, resulting in multiple equilibria. The multiplicity vanishes with a more skewed sex ratio or a liberalization of divorce laws. Our work sheds some light on the possible implications of divorce liberalization and pro-marriage policies.

Keywords: Divorce; sex ratios; marriage; skewness; matching; non-transferable utility. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 J12 K36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2010-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in SMU Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series

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