New IZA DPs -- Family & Marriage
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IZA DP Alerts
May 30, 2026, 9:09:10 AMMay 30
to it...@umich.edu
New IZA Discussion Papers brought to you by IZA@LISER
Dear Italo Gutierrez,
These new IZA Discussion Papers are now available online.
DP 18482 - Bellue/Doepke/Tertilt:
Private Information in the Family
DP 18506 - Guarín/Ham Gonzalez:
The Economic Consequences of Divorce and Separation in Colombia
DP 18508 - Ramirez Lizardi/Fevang/Kverndokk/Røed:
Labor Supply When Parents Are in Need of Care
DP 18519 - Fernández/Kovaleva:
Personality and the Dynamics of Marriage: A Structural Interpretation
DP 18524 - Garcia-Hombrados/Pérez-Parra/Ciacci:
Shifting the Value of Norms: Fast Internet, Premarital Sex and the Erosion of Female Genital Cutting
DP 18600 - Chabé-Ferret/Iftikhar/Park:
Economic Incentives or Social Norms? Labor Supply Differentials Between East and West German Mothers
Please find the abstracts and download links below.
IZA DP No. 18482
Suzanne Bellue, Matthias Doepke, Michèle Tertilt:
Private Information in the Family
Abstract:
Standard models of the family assume that spouses share information. In this paper, we challenge this assumption with theory and evidence. We field a new survey module in the Dutch LISS panel where spouses independently report their knowledge of each other's finances. Private information is pervasive: in 40 percent of couples, at least one partner lacks full knowledge of the other's income. We examine the implications of private information for intrahousehold risk sharing using a mechanism design approach. Our model predicts that a spouse's consumption share rises with their income share when information frictions are present but is independent of income under full information. Constrained-efficient allocations can be sustained without full revelation: each spouse chooses how much money to bring home, and hidden income is never revealed. Evidence from the LISS panel confirms the predictions: a positive relationship between income and consumption shares appears only among impe rfectly informed couples. Controlling for limited commitment does not affect this result, suggesting that information asymmetries-rather than commitment frictions-drive departures from full insurance.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18482.pdf
IZA DP No. 18506
Angela Guarín, Andres Ham Gonzalez:
The Economic Consequences of Divorce and Separation in Colombia
Abstract:
This article provides evidence on the economic consequences of union dissolution, divorce, and the breakup of cohabiting unions, using three waves of a nationally representative longitudinal survey. We estimate individual fixed?effects models with region?specific time trends and conduct a battery of robustness checks to address selection. Results show no average change in household resources, but sharp gender and spatial asymmetries. After separation, men’s per?capita household income rises by about 40 percent, while women’s falls by 20 percent in urban areas and nearly 45 percent in rural ones. Two mechanisms explain the gap: (i) household size contracts for men but not for women because children remain with mothers, and (ii) urban women partly offset losses through greater transfers and a 14 percentage point rise in employment, options largely unavailable to rural women. By separately identifying marriage and cohabitation break?ups in a middle?income country with limited sa fety nets, this study extends the literature on the consequences of union dissolution and highlights policy levers, child?support enforcement, cash transfers, and childcare access, needed to mitigate post?separation poverty, especially for rural mothers.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18506.pdf
IZA DP No. 18508
Eduardo Ramirez Lizardi, Elisabeth Fevang, Snorre Kverndokk, Knut Røed:
Labor Supply When Parents Are in Need of Care
Abstract:
Using Norwegian administrative register data, we show that having a lone parent in the terminal stage of life or close to a nursing home admission has a small negative effect on the offspring’s labor supply, both at the extensive and the intensive margins. While the effects at the intensive margin are reversed after the parent is admitted to nursing home or dies, the negative employment effects are not. We provide evidence indicating that labor supply changes around these critical events are primarily driven by income effects related to a realized or forthcoming inheritance and not by care requirements. Given the scale and quality of publicly provided long-term care in Norway, we conclude that while a parent’s need for care does trigger a significant rise in offspring’s (particularly daughters’) short-term absence from work, it does not noticeably affect their overall employment and earnings.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18508.pdf
IZA DP No. 18519
Gastón P. Fernández, Mariia Kovaleva:
Personality and the Dynamics of Marriage: A Structural Interpretation
Abstract:
This paper examines how personality shapes intra-household bargaining, marital stability, and the allocation of resources within marriages. We use rich data from the HILDA Survey that combines information on spouses’ personalities, wages, time use, and marital histories. In the data, personality is strongly associated with labor-market productivity, marriage and divorce patterns, and the division of paid work and childcare within couples. To interpret these patterns, we estimate a life-cycle collective household model with limited commitment and endogenous marriage and divorce. Within this framework, personality affects: individual wage processes, the quality of marital matches, and preferences over home production. We use the estimated model to quantify the mechanisms through which personality generates heterogeneity in household behavior. The results show that personality matters not only through wage differences but also by altering spouses’ outside options and the set of feasible allocations. Counterfactual simulations highlight how personality influences specialization patterns, the evolution of bargaining power over the life cycle, and the way welfare losses from adverse shocks are shared between spouses.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18519.pdf
IZA DP No. 18524
Jorge Garcia-Hombrados, Daniel Pérez-Parra, Ricardo Ciacci:
Shifting the Value of Norms: Fast Internet, Premarital Sex and the Erosion of Female Genital Cutting
Abstract:
Health-harmful norms persist because they fulfill a socially valued function. In many Nigerian communities, female genital cutting (FGC) is practiced because it is believed to discourage sex outside marriage, outweighing its perceived costs for many households. This paper examines the impact of the expansion of fast internet on FGC in Nigeria. Our findings indicate that exposure to fast internet reduces both the prevalence of FGC and support for it. The effect does not appear to be driven by exposure to explicit anti-FGC content online. Instead, we find that fast internet affects FGC by reducing premarital sex stigma, thereby decreasing the perceived benefits of the practice. These findings provide evidence on how health-harmful norms evolve as the value of their function changes, with implications for designing effective interventions.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18524.pdf
IZA DP No. 18600
Bastien Chabé-Ferret, Zainab Iftikhar, JungJae Park:
Economic Incentives or Social Norms? Labor Supply Differentials Between East and West German Mothers
Abstract:
This paper quantifies the contributions of social norms and economic incentives to the 350-hour annual gap in maternal labor supply between East and West Germany. Using a collective model of family formation and labor supply estimated on GSOEP data from 2000–2017, we find that the working-mother stigma accounts for 73 percent of the gap. Economic factors partially offset the norm: higher Western wages raise the opportunity cost of staying home, so equalizing wages in West to the levels in East would nearly double the gap. We show that standard policy reforms may actually widen the regional disparity, and that their effectiveness is conditional on the norm being present: once removed, the same policies have negligible effects.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18600.pdf
These new IZA Discussion Papers are now available online.
DP 18482 - Bellue/Doepke/Tertilt:
Private Information in the Family
DP 18506 - Guarín/Ham Gonzalez:
The Economic Consequences of Divorce and Separation in Colombia
DP 18508 - Ramirez Lizardi/Fevang/Kverndokk/Røed:
Labor Supply When Parents Are in Need of Care
DP 18519 - Fernández/Kovaleva:
Personality and the Dynamics of Marriage: A Structural Interpretation
DP 18524 - Garcia-Hombrados/Pérez-Parra/Ciacci:
Shifting the Value of Norms: Fast Internet, Premarital Sex and the Erosion of Female Genital Cutting
DP 18600 - Chabé-Ferret/Iftikhar/Park:
Economic Incentives or Social Norms? Labor Supply Differentials Between East and West German Mothers
Please find the abstracts and download links below.
IZA DP No. 18482
Suzanne Bellue, Matthias Doepke, Michèle Tertilt:
Private Information in the Family
Abstract:
Standard models of the family assume that spouses share information. In this paper, we challenge this assumption with theory and evidence. We field a new survey module in the Dutch LISS panel where spouses independently report their knowledge of each other's finances. Private information is pervasive: in 40 percent of couples, at least one partner lacks full knowledge of the other's income. We examine the implications of private information for intrahousehold risk sharing using a mechanism design approach. Our model predicts that a spouse's consumption share rises with their income share when information frictions are present but is independent of income under full information. Constrained-efficient allocations can be sustained without full revelation: each spouse chooses how much money to bring home, and hidden income is never revealed. Evidence from the LISS panel confirms the predictions: a positive relationship between income and consumption shares appears only among impe rfectly informed couples. Controlling for limited commitment does not affect this result, suggesting that information asymmetries-rather than commitment frictions-drive departures from full insurance.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18482.pdf
IZA DP No. 18506
Angela Guarín, Andres Ham Gonzalez:
The Economic Consequences of Divorce and Separation in Colombia
Abstract:
This article provides evidence on the economic consequences of union dissolution, divorce, and the breakup of cohabiting unions, using three waves of a nationally representative longitudinal survey. We estimate individual fixed?effects models with region?specific time trends and conduct a battery of robustness checks to address selection. Results show no average change in household resources, but sharp gender and spatial asymmetries. After separation, men’s per?capita household income rises by about 40 percent, while women’s falls by 20 percent in urban areas and nearly 45 percent in rural ones. Two mechanisms explain the gap: (i) household size contracts for men but not for women because children remain with mothers, and (ii) urban women partly offset losses through greater transfers and a 14 percentage point rise in employment, options largely unavailable to rural women. By separately identifying marriage and cohabitation break?ups in a middle?income country with limited sa fety nets, this study extends the literature on the consequences of union dissolution and highlights policy levers, child?support enforcement, cash transfers, and childcare access, needed to mitigate post?separation poverty, especially for rural mothers.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18506.pdf
IZA DP No. 18508
Eduardo Ramirez Lizardi, Elisabeth Fevang, Snorre Kverndokk, Knut Røed:
Labor Supply When Parents Are in Need of Care
Abstract:
Using Norwegian administrative register data, we show that having a lone parent in the terminal stage of life or close to a nursing home admission has a small negative effect on the offspring’s labor supply, both at the extensive and the intensive margins. While the effects at the intensive margin are reversed after the parent is admitted to nursing home or dies, the negative employment effects are not. We provide evidence indicating that labor supply changes around these critical events are primarily driven by income effects related to a realized or forthcoming inheritance and not by care requirements. Given the scale and quality of publicly provided long-term care in Norway, we conclude that while a parent’s need for care does trigger a significant rise in offspring’s (particularly daughters’) short-term absence from work, it does not noticeably affect their overall employment and earnings.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18508.pdf
IZA DP No. 18519
Gastón P. Fernández, Mariia Kovaleva:
Personality and the Dynamics of Marriage: A Structural Interpretation
Abstract:
This paper examines how personality shapes intra-household bargaining, marital stability, and the allocation of resources within marriages. We use rich data from the HILDA Survey that combines information on spouses’ personalities, wages, time use, and marital histories. In the data, personality is strongly associated with labor-market productivity, marriage and divorce patterns, and the division of paid work and childcare within couples. To interpret these patterns, we estimate a life-cycle collective household model with limited commitment and endogenous marriage and divorce. Within this framework, personality affects: individual wage processes, the quality of marital matches, and preferences over home production. We use the estimated model to quantify the mechanisms through which personality generates heterogeneity in household behavior. The results show that personality matters not only through wage differences but also by altering spouses’ outside options and the set of feasible allocations. Counterfactual simulations highlight how personality influences specialization patterns, the evolution of bargaining power over the life cycle, and the way welfare losses from adverse shocks are shared between spouses.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18519.pdf
IZA DP No. 18524
Jorge Garcia-Hombrados, Daniel Pérez-Parra, Ricardo Ciacci:
Shifting the Value of Norms: Fast Internet, Premarital Sex and the Erosion of Female Genital Cutting
Abstract:
Health-harmful norms persist because they fulfill a socially valued function. In many Nigerian communities, female genital cutting (FGC) is practiced because it is believed to discourage sex outside marriage, outweighing its perceived costs for many households. This paper examines the impact of the expansion of fast internet on FGC in Nigeria. Our findings indicate that exposure to fast internet reduces both the prevalence of FGC and support for it. The effect does not appear to be driven by exposure to explicit anti-FGC content online. Instead, we find that fast internet affects FGC by reducing premarital sex stigma, thereby decreasing the perceived benefits of the practice. These findings provide evidence on how health-harmful norms evolve as the value of their function changes, with implications for designing effective interventions.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18524.pdf
IZA DP No. 18600
Bastien Chabé-Ferret, Zainab Iftikhar, JungJae Park:
Economic Incentives or Social Norms? Labor Supply Differentials Between East and West German Mothers
Abstract:
This paper quantifies the contributions of social norms and economic incentives to the 350-hour annual gap in maternal labor supply between East and West Germany. Using a collective model of family formation and labor supply estimated on GSOEP data from 2000–2017, we find that the working-mother stigma accounts for 73 percent of the gap. Economic factors partially offset the norm: higher Western wages raise the opportunity cost of staying home, so equalizing wages in West to the levels in East would nearly double the gap. We show that standard policy reforms may actually widen the regional disparity, and that their effectiveness is conditional on the norm being present: once removed, the same policies have negligible effects.
https://docs.iza.org/dp18600.pdf
IZA DP Alerts | www.iza.org
If you have trouble downloading the papers, or for any other questions regarding the IZA Discussion Paper Series, please contact iza...@liser.lu.
IZA@LISER Network
Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval
Privacy Policy | Manage your subscriptions
If you have trouble downloading the papers, or for any other questions regarding the IZA Discussion Paper Series, please contact iza...@liser.lu.
IZA@LISER Network
Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval
Privacy Policy | Manage your subscriptions
IZA DP Alerts
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