Title of presentation: Divorce, Family Arrangement, and Children's Outcomes
Abstract:
Families are a fundamental and ubiquitous institution that raise children in their most formative years. The last century has seen a rise in divorce, such that 29 percent of children now experience a parental divorce before adulthood. We utilize U.S. tax and Census records to examine (1) how divorce shapes the arrangement of family life, and (2) how it affects children's outcomes. At the onset of divorce, children's geographical distance to one parent increases, household income falls, mothers' work hours increase, moving rates rise, and children move to poorer neighborhoods with lower rates of upward mobility. Using panel data on child outcomes, we find that children's teen births and mortality rise substantially at the time of divorce. We estimate the long-term effect of divorce on children's outcomes by comparing siblings with differing years of exposure to divorce in the same family. A parent divorce early in childhood reduces adult earnings and college attendance while increasing the likelihood of incarceration. About a third of the estimated effect of divorce is explained by changes in household income and neighborhood choice with the majority of the effect unexplained by these intermediaries.
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