Death and Divorce: The Long‐Term Consequences of Parental Loss on Adolescents

Abstract

Two quasi‐experiments are used to estimate the impact of parental divorce on the adult labor market and marital/fertility outcomes of adolescents. These involve individuals experiencing the death of a parent and legislative changes to the Canadian divorce law. Parental loss by death is assumed to be exogenous, the experiences of children with a bereaved background offering a benchmark to assess the endogeneity of parental loss through divorce. Adolescents whose parents divorced put off marriage and, once married, suffer a greater likelihood of marital instability, but their earnings and incomes are not on average much different from others.