Full Citation

Title: The Effect of Marital Breakup on the Income and Poverty of Women with Children

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2004

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Abstract: Having a female firstborn child significantly increases the probability that a womans first marriage breaks up. We exploit this exogenous variation to measure the effect of marital breakup on womens economic outcomes. We find evidence that breakup has little effect on a womans average household income, but significantly increases the probability that her household will be in the lowest income quartile. While women partially offset the loss of spousal earnings with child support, welfare, combining households, and substantially increasing their labor supply, divorcesignificantly increases the odds of household poverty on net.

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Authors: Michaels, Guy; Ananat, Elizabeth Oltmans

Publisher: Massachusetts Institute of Technology We

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Other

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