Marriage Market, Divorce Legislation, and Household Labor Supply

This paper provides a theoretical framework for analyzing the impact of the marriage market and divorce legislation on household labor supply. In our approach, the sex ratio in the marriage market and the rules governing divorce are examples of "distribution factors." These factors are defined as variables that affect the household members' bargaining position but not preferences or the joint budget set. We extend the collective labor supply model developed by Chiappori to allow for distribution factors. We show that our model imposes new restrictions on the labor supply functions and eases the identification of individual preferences and the intrahousehold decision process. The model is estimated using PSID…