The impact of marriage property law on spouses' marriage-specific investment

Presenter: Daniela Piazzalunga, Università di Torino, Italy

Author: Daniela Piazzalunga

This paper analyses the effects of different marital property regimes on the marriage-specific investment of the spouses. In particular, it provides an empirical assessment of the effects of a change from a separation property regime towards a more equal distribution of matrimonial assets on labour supply, housework time and child care. To assess causality, I exploit a decision taken by the English House of Lord in October 2000 (White v. White), and apply a difference-in-difference, with individual fixed effects, using the British Household Panel Survey for 1992-2005. Preliminary results show that married women reduced the hours worked by about 1.5-2.5 hours (slightly more if overtime is included) when the property regime is more favourable to them. They didn’t change the number of hours devoted to housework, but the probability that they are the main responsible for children under 12 increased by 5-9%. Moreover, the results hide heterogeneities: as expected, the effects are significant for women in couples with higher level of assets and wealth (proxied by education), while no effect is found among low educated women. The results are robust to different specifications. While previous papers also found a reduction of labour supply, the results on housework time and child care may suggest that a more equal property regime changes the bargaining power of married women in such a way that they increase investment in the marriage, but only on the most enjoyable activities, such as child care is reported to be compared to housework chores.