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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Please turn in problem set 2 before lecture starts in
class or at 2232 Piedmont. Problem set 1 has been
graded. You can pick it up at the Demography
Building, 2232 Piedmont. A set of keys was found
in sections. If you don’t pick it up we will drop it
off at the lost and found at Barrows.
Reading
: Feyrer, Sacerdote and Stern article “Will
the Stork Return to Europe and Japan?”
LECTURE
Outline
1.
Marriage and Divorce
2.
Fertility
Marriage and Divorce
Marrying at an early age is associated with a higher
risk of divorce. It could be a result of the fact that
your search process as shorter. You know yourself
less well, you know the person less well, you know
how you will be together less well.
Cohabitation
, a couple living together without
being married, used to be very rare in the 60’s and
70’s. It has been on the rise in the past decades.
More than 50% of couples marrying in 1990’s had
first cohabited.
Q1
: Research has shown that:
A.
Wives with higher earning potential are
more likely to divorce
B.
Individuals who marry at younger ages are
more likely to divorce
C.
Couples that cohabited before marriage are
more likely to divorce
D.
All of the above
E.
Two of the above.
A is true. B is also true. C is true, we have not
talked about it in lecture but it is in the readings so
the correct answer is D.
Q2
: Cohabitation causes divorce, because couples
that cohabit before marriage have higher
probabilities of divorce.
A.
True
B.
False
B is the correct answer. Correlation and association
are here but we do not have evidence for causation.
There is another explanation for why this
association exists. There is self selection into those
who cohabit. People with less traditional
orientations are more likely to live together. The
fact is true but the causal part is not yet proved.
Cohabitation could take place for different reasons.
It may be you are planning on getting married and
just live together waiting for the wedding. Some
people use it as a substitute for marriage. Or some
people are just trying it out to see how things work
out.
Lehrer looks at a study that says if you control for
the self selection effect there does not seem to be
any evidence for divorce rates after cohabitation.
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- Spring '08
- Lee
- Economics, UC Board of Regents, ASUC Lecture Notes, Lecture Notes Online
-
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