‘Til Death Do Us Part: Effects of Divorce Laws on Suicide, Domestic Violence and Spousal Murder

Over the past thirty years changes in divorce law have significantly increased access to divorce. The different timing of divorce law reform across states provides a useful quasi-experiment with which to examine the effects of this change. We analyze state panel data to estimate changes in suicide, domestic violence and spousal murder rates arising from the change in divorce law. Suicide rates are used as a quantifiable measure of happiness and well-being, albeit one that focuses on the extreme lower tail of the distribution. We find a large, statistically significant, and econometrically robust decline in the number of women committing suicide following the introduction of unilateral divorce. No significant effect is found for men. Domestic violence is analyzed using both data on family conflict resolution, and intimate homicide rates. The results indicate a large decline in domestic violence for both men and women in states that adopted unilateral divorce. We find suggestive evidence that unilateral divorce led to a decline in females murdered by their partners, while the data revealed no discernible effects for men murdered. In sum, we find strong evidence that legal institutions have profound real effects on outcomes within families. Contact: [email protected] (www.economics.harvard.edu/~bstevens) [email protected] (www.economics.harvard.edu/~jwolfers) This project has drawn on the advice of many generous friends and colleagues, including Olivier Blanchard, Margaret Brinig, David Cutler, David Ellwood, Leora Friedberg, Ed Glaeser, Claudia Goldin, Caroline Minter Hoxby, Sandy Jencks, Alan Krueger, Steve Levitt, Jeff Miron, Katherine Newman, Robert Putnam, David Weiman, Julie Wilson and seminar participants at Harvard University and the MacArthur Network on Inequality and Social Interactions. Special thanks goes to Larry Katz for his guidance throughout the project. We have also benefited from the excellent research assistance of Eric Klotch, Jason Ng, and Michael Faye. Remaining errors are our own. We are grateful to the MacArthur Foundation and the Social Science Research Council for funding for this project.