Abstract
This paper studies the impact of unilateral divorce laws on child weight gain. I use difference-in-differences approach exploiting time and state variation in the adoption of the unilateral divorce law. I analyze a comprehensive nationwide health examination survey (NHANES I) during 1971-1974. The results show that exposure to unilateral divorce law leads to bigger Body Mass Index (BMI) for children between 2 and 18 years.However, according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this weight gain is still under the normality patterns. I also investigate the possibles transmission mechanisms for the increase in BMI. Results indicate that for the specic age group of children between 7 and 18 years the exposure to unilateral divorce law leads to bigger BMI and bigger probability to be overweight.
Highlights
In the 70’s, the USA witnessed a transformation into the family unity that has been called the “Divorce evolution”
The results show that exposure to unilateral divorce law leads to bigger Body Mass Index (BMI) for children between 2 and 18 years.according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this weight gain is still under the normality patterns
My baseline specification for child weight measure is: where, WMi,j,t is the weight measure (BMI, Underweight types I, II and III, Overweight and Obese) of children i in state j and time t. λj is a set of state fixed effects which absorbs time-invariant differences in observable and unobservable characteristics. δt is a set of year fixed effects that accounts for potential common time trends across states
Summary
In the 70’s, the USA witnessed a transformation into the family unity that has been called the “Divorce evolution”. The unilateral divorce law (UD) has been perceived as negative for children, once the ease of divorce could lead to the breakdown of the traditional family. There is a large literature in sociology, developmental psychology, and economics that documents the negative impact to children of divorced parents, both as children and later as adults. Amato and Keith (1991), for example, report that children of divorce have more difficulty than children in intact families adjusting both socially and psychologically. Surveys show that children of divorce are more likely to exhibit antisocial and impulsive behavior. They are more likely to become delinquents (Matsueda & Heimer, 1987; Zill, Morrison, & Coiro, 1993), and to perform worse academically (Guidubaldi, Perry & Cleminshaw, 1984)
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