Marital instability and retirement

We argue that retirement from work may affect marriage stability, according to the predictions of quite standard economic models of the determinants of divorce. At retirement, time needs to be reallocated immediately from work... [ view full abstract ]

We argue that retirement from work may affect marriage stability, according to the predictions of quite standard economic models of the determinants of divorce. At retirement, time needs to be reallocated immediately from work to other activities, which may lead to marital conflict. We exploit retirement laws in France to instrument the effect of retirement on marriage break up rates, using Census data, and pooled years of Labour Force Survey data. We find an immediate and negative effect of retirement on the marriage probability of men, which drops by 4-7%. There is no evidence of anticipation effects. We find that these results are stronger for the low educated while having children living at home tends to decrease the effect. There is no apparent effect of retirement on the marriage stability of females.