Financial implications of relationship breakdown: does marriage matter?

Hayley Fisher () and Hamish Low

No W12/17, IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies

Abstract: In raw data in the UK, the income loss on separation for women who were cohabiting is less than the loss for those who were married. Cohabitees lose less even after matching on observable characteristics including age and children. This difference is not explained by differences in access to benefits or labour supply responses after separation. We show that the difference arises because of differences in access to family support networks: cohabitees' household income falls by less because they are more likely to live with other adults, particularly their family, following separation, even after matching on age and children. Divorced women do not return to living with their extended families. The greater legal protection offered by marriage does not appear to translate into economic protection.

Keywords: divorce; cohabitation; income loss; matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-10-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1217.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1217.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1217.pdf [302 Found]--> https://ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1217.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Financial implications of relationship breakdown: Does marriage matter? (2015)
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:ifs:ifsewp:12/17

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IFS Working Papers from Institute for Fiscal Studies The Institute for Fiscal Studies 7 Ridgmount Street LONDON WC1E 7AE. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emma Hyman ().