Divorce, Abortion and Children's Sex Ratio: The Impact of Divorce Reform in China

Ang Sun () and Yaohui Zhao ()
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Ang Sun: Central University of Finance and Economics
Yaohui Zhao: Peking University

No 8230, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper explores how the relative circumstances of men and women following marital dissolution affect sex-selection behavior within marriages. China's 2001 divorce reform liberalized divorce in favor of women and secured women's property rights after separation. We use this improvement in women's bargaining power in marriage for a regression discontinuity analysis of the demand for sex-selective abortions. We show that the increase in women's bargaining power reduces the propensity to have a son after a firstborn daughter by 8.9 percentage points. We also find that the effect is larger for women with higher health risks.

Keywords: intra-household allocation; gender inequality; divorce law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J12 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2014-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna and nep-tra
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Published - published in: Journal of Development Economics, 2016, 120, 53-69

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