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Social Insurance and the Marriage Market

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  • Petra Persson

Abstract

Social insurance is often linked to marriage. Existing evidence suggests small marital responses to financial incentives and stems from settings where benefits are realized in the near future. I analyze how linking survivors insurance to marriage affects the marriage market. Exploiting Sweden’s elimination of survivors insurance, I demonstrate that severing this link (1) affected entry into marriage up to 50 years before expected payout, (2) raised the divorce rate by 10%, and (3) raised the assortativeness of matching. This suggests that marital behavior is a key component of couples’ strategies to plan for financial security in old age.

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  • Petra Persson, 2020. "Social Insurance and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(1), pages 252-300.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/704073
    DOI: 10.1086/704073
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

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