Marriage and divorce: the role of unemployment insurance

Bastian Schulz and Fabian Siuda ()
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Fabian Siuda: Vienna University of Economics and Business, ifo Institute

Journal of Population Economics, 2023, vol. 36, issue 4, No 9, 2277-2308

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines how changes in household-level risk sharing affect the marriage market. We use as our laboratory a German unemployment insurance (UI) reform that tightened means-testing based on the partner’s income. The reduced generosity of UI increased the demand for household-level risk sharing, which lowered the attractiveness of individuals exposed to unemployment risk. Because unemployment risk correlates with non-German nationality, our main finding is that the UI reform led to a decrease in intermarriage. The 2004 expansion of the European Union had a comparable effect on intermarriage for the affected nationalities. Both reforms increased marital stability, which is consistent with better selection by couples.

Keywords: Marriage; Divorce; Household risk sharing; Unemployment insurance; Labor market reform; Intermarriage; EU expansion; J10; J12; J15; J64; J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00148-023-00961-1

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