NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Economics of Marital Instability

Gary S. Becker, Elisabeth M. Landes, Robert T. Michael

NBER Working Paper No. 153*
Issued in October 1976

This paper focuses on the causes of divorce. Section I developsa theoretical analysis of marital dissolution incorporating uncertaintyabout the outcomes of marital decisions into a framework of utilitymaximization and the marriage market. Section II explores the implica-tions of the theoretical analysis with cross-sectional data,primarilythe 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity and the Terman sample. Therelevance of both the theoretical and empirical analyses in explainingthe recent acceleration in the U.S. divorce rate is discussed.

*Published: Becker, Gary S., Elisabeth M. Landes, and Robert T. Michael. " An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability." Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 85, No . 6, (December 1977), pp. 1141-1187.

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