abstract: 'During the 1970s, the United States switched from mutual consent to a

  unilateral divorce regime. Who benefited/lost from this change? We

  develop a dynamic life cycle model in which agents make consumption,

  saving, work, and marital-status decisions under a given divorce regime.

  Calibrating the model to match key moments for the 1940 cohort and

  conditioning solely on gender, our ex ante welfare analysis finds that

  women fare better under mutual consent whereas men prefer a unilateral

  system. Conditioning as well on initial productivity (expected income),

  we find that the top three quintiles of men and the top two quintiles of

  women prefer unilateral divorce.'
affiliation: 'Fernandez, R (Corresponding Author), NYU, Dept Econ, 19 W 4th St, New
  York, NY 10012 USA.

  Fernandez, R (Corresponding Author), NBER, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.

  Fernandez, R (Corresponding Author), CEPR, Washington, DC 61942 USA.

  Fernandez, R (Corresponding Author), IZA, Washington, DC USA.

  Fernandez, R (Corresponding Author), ESOP, Washington, DC USA.

  Fernandez, R (Corresponding Author), BREAD, Washington, DC USA.

  Fernandez, Raquel, NYU, Dept Econ, 19 W 4th St, New York, NY 10012 USA.

  Fernandez, Raquel, NBER, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.

  Fernandez, Raquel, CEPR, Washington, DC 61942 USA.

  Fernandez, Raquel, IZA, Washington, DC USA.

  Fernandez, Raquel, ESOP, Washington, DC USA.

  Fernandez, Raquel, BREAD, Washington, DC USA.

  Wong, Joyce Cheng, Int Monetary Fund, 1900 Penn Ave NW, Washington, DC 20431 USA.'
author: Fernandez, Raquel and Wong, Joyce Cheng
author-email: 'raquel.fernandez@nyu.edu

  jwong2@imf.org'
author_list:
- family: Fernandez
  given: Raquel
- family: Wong
  given: Joyce Cheng
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1257/mac.20150293
eissn: 1945-7715
files: []
issn: 1945-7707
journal: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
keywords-plus: 'LABOR-FORCE PARTICIPATION; UNILATERAL DIVORCE; ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES;

  WAGE INEQUALITY; MARRIED-WOMEN; CHILD-CARE; LAWS; FERTILITY; RATES; WORK'
language: English
month: JUL
number: '3'
number-of-cited-references: '55'
pages: 72-115
papis_id: 6702e3d16edaa34ba7ad1749f91fad91
ref: Fernandez2017freeleave
times-cited: '8'
title: Free to Leave? A Welfare Analysis of Divorce Regimes
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000408152400003
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '5'
volume: '9'
web-of-science-categories: Economics
year: '2017'