Social Insurance and the Marriage Market

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Persson, Petra
• 署名单位: Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/704073
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 252-300
• 关键词: welfare-reform; INCOME-TAXES; IMPACT; selection; INFORMATION; duration; marry; LAW

摘要

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.