Browsing by Author "Roff, Jennifer"
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Publication Bargaining under Threats: The Effect of Joint Custody Laws on Intimate Partner Violence(2021-09) Fernández Kranz, Daniel; Nollenberger, Natalia ; Roff, Jennifer; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75We study the effect of a policy change that exogenously shifted bargaining power from mothers to fathers on intimate partner violence. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment based on a series of reforms in Spain that shifted the custody decision from being unilaterally determined by the mother to a joint decision, barring evidence of violence. We find that the policy led to a large and significant decrease in intimate partner violence, with the largest effects among couples in which the mother was more likely to seek sole custody before the policy change.Publication Bargaining under Threats: The Effect of Joint Custody Laws on Intimate Partner Violence(IZA, 2020-10) Nollenberger, Natalia; Fernández Kranz, Daniel; Roff, Jennifer; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75We study the effect of a policy change that exogenously shifted bargaining power from mothers to fathers on intimate partner violence. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment based on a series of reforms in Spain that shifted the custody decision from being unilaterally determined by the mother to a joint decision, barring evidence of violence. We find that the policy increased the incidence of joint custody in Spain from less than 11% of all divorces to 40% in just five years. Comparing the evolution of intimate partner violence in treated and control regions and using couples without children as an additional comparison group, we find that the policy led to a large and significant decrease in intimate partner violence, with the largest effects among couples in which the mother was more likely to seek sole custody before the policy change. Consistent with this finding, the policy also led to a significant reduction in female partner homicides in treated regions. Finally, we also find evidence of more police reports by victims of intimate partner violence with a significantly higher proportion of these reports ending in dismissals or non-guilty decisions by the specialized courts. We interpret this finding as evidence of strategic behavior by mothers who want to retain sole custody of their children.Publication Can economic incentives for joint custody harm children of divorced parents? Evidence from state variation in child support laws(Elsevier, 2021-09) Fernández Kranz, Daniel; Roff, Jennifer; Sun, Hugette; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75US state laws vary widely in the treatment of child support under joint custody. While some states require no child support in joint custody cases, other states require fathers with joint custody to pay the same amount as if they had no custody. The economic incentives generated by those custody laws can affect family decisions and the wellbeing of children of divorced parents, both under joint and sole custody. Merging child data from the SIPP with state child support guidelines, we find that economic incentives for joint custody have negative effects on the human capital development and health of children of divorced parents. Custody data together with parental characteristics and time use data suggest that economic incentives for joint custody may limit children's time spent with relatively high-quality mothers, as fathers pursue joint custody in response to the policy. We do not find an effect of economic incentives for joint custody on the probability of divorce and on the wellbeing of children in intact families. Our results are robust to specification changes, and the negative effects of economic incentives for joint custody on the wellbeing of children tend to be larger for girls and for children aged 12 and under.Publication Child Custody Laws and Household Outcomes(Springer Nature, 2022-09-06) Fernández Kranz, Daniel; Roff, Jennifer; Zimmermann, Klaus; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75Shared parenting or joint physical custody is an increasingly common phenomenon in many Western countries. While one strand of the economics literature on this topic has taken a theoretical approach, examining the efficiency and distributional effects of joint custody within marriage, most of the literature has focused on identifying the effects of shared parenting empirically. However, an empirical analysis of shared parenting and its consequences is difficult for multiple reasons, including selection in joint custody and data ambiguity in identifying “friendly” joint custody legal regimes. This Handbook chapter provides an overview of the legal treatment of shared parenting internationally and within the USA and discuss the theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of shared parenting on family outcomes. The chapter conclude with directions for future research.Publication Commitments and the Marital Match: The Effect of Alimony Reform on Assortative Matching(IZA, 2021-11) Fernández Kranz, Daniel; Roff, Jennifer; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75This paper examines the effects of reforms that reduced alimony on matching in the marriage market. Recent literature indicates that divorce law changes which reduce commitment or income-sharing upon separation will lead to an increase in assortative matching, as women forgo specialization which may not be compensated upon divorce. Using state-level data on alimony reform that reduced the entitlements of eligible spouses and American Community Survey data on marriage and the characteristics of newlyweds, we find that alimony reform increased measures of spousal covariance in education. Our results indicate that correlation coefficients on spousal degree attainment consistently rise with alimony reform, and regression-based measures of assortative matching increase similarly. Moreover, we find the largest effects among those groups who might be more sensitive to the reform. Regression-based measures of assortative matching increase by over 10% among couples in which at least one partner had previously been married and by 9% among those couples who marry in states with less generous property division and child support which are often treated as substitutes for alimony in divorce settlementsPublication The effect of alimony on married women’s laborsupply and fertility: Evidence from state-levelreforms(Wiley, 2024-11-25) Fernández Kranz, Daniel; Roff, Jennifer; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75Reforms that reduce spousal support after divorce are generally thought to reduce the bargaining power of alimony recipients as well as their incentives to participate in the traditional model of household specialization. Using the U.S. Time Use Survey and exploiting a series of recent reforms in several U.S. states that reduced the rights of eligible spouses, we find that wives surprised by the reforms reacted by increasing their labor supply, but the adjustment mechanism varied by educational group. While college educated wives' labor supply increased at the expense of time spent on housework and childcare, wives with less than a college degree sacrificed personal care and leisure time. Effects for men are generally smaller and not statistically significant. We also find a reduction in the rate of new births following the reforms, with the effect being much more pronounced in the case of women with a university education, suggesting that part of the difference in time use may be attributable to differences in preferences and the cost of children by educational levels. Since children are a marital public good, our results imply a decrease in marriage-specific investment. The estimated effects are robust to various sensitivity tests and are greater in couples with a high-income differential and therefore more exposed to changes in alimony laws.