A Benefit for the Divorce Mediation Clinic

Fundraiser for the Divorce Mediation Clinic. Prof. Bob Collins conducts The Croton Choral and Orchestra as they perform a masterpiece by the nation\u27s first woman composer, Amy Beach.https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/flyers-2017-2018/1017/thumbnail.jp

Divorce in cooperatively breeding long-tailed tits: a consequence of inbreeding avoidance?

The decision of whether to divorce a breeding partner between reproductive attempts can significantly affect individual fitness. In this paper, we report that 63% of surviving pairs of long-tailed tits Aegithalos caudatus divorced between years. We examine three likely explanations for the high divorce rate in this cooperative breeder. The 'better option' hypothesis predicts that divorce and re-pairing increases an individual's reproductive success. However, divorcees did not secure better partners or more helpers and there was no improvement in their reproductive success following divorce. The 'inbreeding avoidance' hypothesis predicts that females should disperse from their family group to avoid breeding with philopatric sons. The observed pattern of divorce was consistent with this hypothesis because, in contrast to the usual avian pattern, divorce was typical for successful pairs (81%) and less frequent in unsuccessful pairs (36-43%). The 'forced divorce' hypothesis predicts that divorce increases as the number of competitors increases. The pattern of divorce among failed breeders was consistent with this hypothesis, but it fails to explain the overall occurrence of divorce because divorcees rarely re-paired with their partners' closest competitors. We discuss long-tailed tits' unique association between divorce and reproductive success in the context of dispersal strategies for inbreeding avoidance

Parental divorce is not uniformly disruptive to children's educational attainment.

Children whose parents divorce tend to have worse educational outcomes than children whose parents stay married. However, not all children respond identically to their parents divorcing. We focus on how the impact of parental divorce on children's education varies by how likely or unlikely divorce was for those parents. We find a significant negative effect of parental divorce on educational attainment, particularly college attendance and completion, among children whose parents were unlikely to divorce. Families expecting marital stability, unprepared for disruption, may experience considerable adjustment difficulties when divorce occurs, leading to negative outcomes for children. By contrast, we find no effect of parental divorce among children whose parents were likely to divorce. Children of high-risk marriages, who face many social disadvantages over childhood irrespective of parental marital status, may anticipate or otherwise accommodate to the dissolution of their parents' marriage. Our results suggest that family disruption does not uniformly disrupt children's attainment

The Effect of Divorce Laws on Divorce Rates in Europe

This paper analyzes a panel of 18 European countries spanning from 1950 to 2003 to examine the extent to which the legal reforms leading to "easier divorce" that took place during the second half of the 20th century have contributed to the increase in divorce rates across Europe. We use a quasi-experimental set-up and exploit the different timing of the reforms in divorce laws across countries. We account for unobserved country-specific factors by introducing country fixed effects, and we include country-specific trends to control for time-varying factors at the country level that may be correlated with divorce rates and divorce laws, such as changing social norms or slow moving demographic trends. We find that the different reforms that "made divorce easier" were followed by significant increases in divorce rates. The effect of no-fault legislation was strong and permanent, while unilateral reforms only had a temporary effect on divorce rates. Overall, we estimate that the legal reforms account for about 20 percent of the increase in divorce rates in Europe between 1960 and 2002

Divorce decisions, divorce laws and social norms

This article focuses on the three way relationship between change in divorce law, evolution of divorce rate and evolution of the cultural acceptance of divorce. We consider a heterogeneous population in which individuals differ in terms of the subjective loss they suffer when divorced, this loss being associated with stigmatizing social norms. The proportion of each type of individual evolves endogenously through a cultural transmission process. Divorce law is chosen by majority voting between two alternatives : mutual consent and unilateral divorce. In this framework, evolutions of divorce rate and divorce law may be jointly affected by the cultural dynamics within the society. In particular, we are able to reproduce the fact that divorce rate often raises before a legislation change. Indeed, the shift from consensual to unilateral divorce has an accelerating effect on the increase in divorce rate but is not the driving force behind this evolution.Marriage and divorce, divorce legislation, cultural evolution, social norms.

Divorce: Causes and Effects on Children

This paper investigates “Divorce: Causes and Effects on Children.” Worthy of note is that the fact that, divorce is not an uncommon experience in human history. It is experienced by couples irrespective of their social, religious, academic, political, economic, etc. status. One of the most hit in the saga of divorce are children born into the wedlock where divorce is experienced. The effects of this divorce on children are most often not well considered by the parents who embark on taking the status of divorcees. This becomes the onus of this paper using sociological and psychoanalytical approaches to the study of human institutions to study these effects on children, though not without looking at the causes of divorce. The paper reveals that the effects of divorce on children often are emotional, psychological, economical and religious spheres among others and recommends ways in which these effects can be minimized among children

(WP 2011-05) \u27Til Recession Do Us Part: Booms, Busts, and Divorce in the United States

A general hypothesis regarding the impact of permanent income levels and business cycle fluctuations on divorce rate at the state level in the United States is analyzed in the paper. Using data for 45 states over the 1978-2009 sample period, the paper shows that the higher the level of transitory income, the higher is the incidence of divorce. In other words, divorce is pro-cyclical. Why do divorce decrease during recession and increase during expansion? When an economy is in crisis and people’s incomes are low, the cost of divorce will prevent a couple from divorcing irrespective of the quality of their marriage. In this case, divorce is not an effective option. Extending this reasoning to the Great Recession of 2007-9, it can be argued that scarce employment opportunities and reductions in the value of martial assets had forced couples to remain together, notwithstanding marital difficulties. As the economy moved into a slow and moderate recovery beginning in mid-2009, this pent-up demand for divorce was released and the rates increased. That, in large part, is why divorce generally follow a ‘pro-cyclical’ course, fluctuating in sympathy with the economy

Are happiness and productivity lower among university students with newly-divorced parents? : an experimental approach

We live in a high-divorce age. Parents worry about the possibility of negative effects upon their children. This paper tests whether recent parental-divorce has deleterious consequences for grown children. Under controlled conditions, it measures students’ happiness with life, and their productivity in a standardized laboratory task. No negative effects from divorce can be detected. If anything, happiness and productivity are greater, particularly among males, if they have experienced parental divorce. Using longitudinal BHPS data -- to control for fixed effects -- we cross-check this result on happiness. Again, the evidence suggests that young people’s mental well-being improves after parental divorce

Divorce Laws and Divorce Rate in the U.S.

At the end of the 1960s, the U.S. divorce laws underwent major changes and the divorce rate more than doubled in all of the states. The new laws introduced unilateral divorce in most of the states and changes in divorce settlements in every state, such as property division, alimony transfers, and child custody assignments. The empirical literature so far has focused on the switch from consensual to unilateral divorce and found that this change cannot fully account for the increase in the divorce rate. Also, the divorce rate increased even in states where the decision remained consensual. In this paper, I consider the effects of other aspects of the legal change. I show that changes in divorce settlements provide economic incentives for both spouses to agree to divorce. Moreover, I describe a mechanism that can explain the different change in divorce rate by age of couples. I solve and calibrate a model where agents differ by gender, and make decisions on their marital status, investment and labor supply. Under the new financial settlements, divorced men gain from a favorable division of property, while women gain from an increase in alimony and child support transfers. Since both of them are better off in the new divorce setting, the existing requirement of consent for divorce (consensual or unilateral) is no longer relevant. Results show that changes in divorce settlements account for a substantial amount of the increase in the aggregate divorce rate. I also find that the increase in divorce rate of young couples with children contributes the most to the overall increase, which is consistent with the data.Age-specific divorce rate, unilateral and consensual divorce, divorce laws, property division, alimony and child support, child custody

Does Culture Affect Divorce Decisions? Evidence from European Immigrants in the US

This paper explores the role of culture in determining divorce decisions by examining country of origin differences in divorce rates of immigrants in the United States. Because childhood-arriving immigrants are all exposed to a common set of US laws and institutions, we interpret relationships between their divorce tendencies and home country divorce rates as evidence of the effect of culture. Our results are robust to controlling for several home country variables including average church attendance and GDP. Moreover, specifications with country of origin fixed effects suggest that divorce probabilities are especially low for immigrants from countries with low divorce rates that reside amidst a large number of co-ethnics. Supplemental analyses indicate that divorce culture has a stronger impact on the divorce decisions of females than of males pointing to a potentially gendered nature of divorce taboos.immigrants, culture, divorce