1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«This paper investigates the impact of child support policy on the decisions to marry and to divorce. It draws on a rich Canadian data set, [...] and is the first to look empirically at how the major reforms to child support may affect marriage and divorce.» (p. 470)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«The SLID [Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics] microdata set contains information annually on some 15,000 [canadian] households, a figure that necessarily varies from year to year with people entering (for example, through marriage) and leaving (for example, death) the cohort.» (p. 449) «The SLID tracks cohorts of individuals over 6-year waves, which permits, among other things, a detailed analysis of the evolution of households over this period. It provides a rich array of information from 1993 to 1998 inclusive, which allows us to identify individuals who marry (including those who live together) during the period of the sample and those who separate or divorce.» (p. 449)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Child support measures may affect the composition of households by altering the costs associated with marriage and divorce. In this paper, we use a rich panel data set [...] to examine the extent to which household formation and dissolution decisions were affected by the major child support reforms introduced in Canada in 1997. Our results suggest that they have had a small but positive impact on the decision to marry and a positive and important impact on the decision to divorce.» (p. 441) Most of the analysis is detailed by provinces. The province of Quebec is often talked about especially because the marriage rate is lower than in the rest of Canada which has incidence in the study.