Non-Marital Childbearing and Marital Property Laws: An Application of the WIHO Model

No 2023-005, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: This article analyzes choice between marital and non-marital childbearing based on a conceptual model that considers the repercussions of marriage laws for the individual wellbeing of women and men living in couples. Childbearing responses to changes in three marriage laws are evaluated: (1) the annulment of coverture laws in the second half of the 19th Century and the first part of the 20th Century; (2) a switch in legal regime used to attribute marital property (from a British system generally less protective of the property rights of lower-earning spouses to a regime of community property), and (3) changes in the availability of Common law marriage in addition to regular marriage. The model is based on a WIHO (Work-In-Household) model and assumes that individual women and men make decisions regarding production and reproduction.

Keywords: marital and non-marital childbearing; coverture laws; common law marriage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 K36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-law
Note: FI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Grossb ... marital-property.pdf First version, February 1, 2023 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:hka:wpaper:2023-005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jennifer Pachon ().