Where Did It Go Wrong? Marriage and Divorce in Malawi

We propose a structural model of the household with consumption, production and revealed preference conditions for stability on the marriage market. We define marital instability in terms of the consumption gains to remarrying... [ view full abstract ]

We propose a structural model of the household with consumption, production and revealed preference conditions for stability on the marriage market. We define marital instability in terms of the consumption gains to remarrying another individual in the same marriage market, and to being single. The model is applied to rich panel data from Malawi. Based on our estimates of marital instability in the first wave of the data, we find that a 1 percentage point increase in the wife's estimated consumption gains from remarriage is significantly associated with a 0.6 percentage point increase in divorce probability in the next three years. In a multinomial model, higher values of consumption gains from remarriage raise the odds of subsequent divorce and remarriage but not of divorce and singlehood.