The Effect of Social Security on Divorce and Remarriage Behavior

As the divorce rate increased through the 1970s, the policy climate for divorce also changed dramatically, raising the question of whether the secular trends in divorce were influenced by these policy changes or vice versa. One such policy change, passed in late 1977 in recognition of falling marriage durations, entitled divorced persons to claim auxiliary Social Security benefits on their ex-spouse’s record if the marriage lasted at least ten years, where previously 20 years of marriage were required. Using large samples of vital statistics divorce records, we consider the possibility that the financial incentives associated with a claim on auxiliary Social Security benefits discourages divorces from occurring immediately before the ten year duration is reached and encourages divorces that reached the ten year duration. We find no evidence that the divorce timing or propensities reacted in this way within the overall sample of divorces. There is suggestive evidence that older women may have delayed divorces to reach the ten-year mark. Further, we find that divorces ending after ten years do not follow longer periods of separation to reach the ten year duration. Finding little evidence that the law affected divorce propensities or timing, we consider whether providing a new claim on future Social Security benefits to all women with at least a ten-year marriage lowered remarriage probabilities, relative to women with only a nine-year marriage. Again, the incentives implicit in the law do not appear to have affected remarriage behavior. This evidence suggests that the effect of the law change was mainly redistributive and did not have the unintended consequence of changing divorce or remarriage behavior.