The
introduction and dispersion of the birth control
pill initiated a fertility revolution in the US
during the 1960s and early 1970s. This
paper investigates the impact of that revolution
on cohabitation behavior. A theoretical
model generates predictions that are tested
using two separate data sources. The
causal effect of the pill on cohabitation is
estimated by exploiting plausibly exogenous
variation in state laws granting access to the
pill to unmarried women under 21. The
evidence shows that the pill was instrumental in
making cohabitation a more common part of the
mate selection process, but had little
effect in the short run in making cohabitation a substitute for
marriage.
This paper shows how the experiential learning
aspect of mate selection affects sorting
outcomes when types are complementary. The
degree of marital assortative mating, where
likes marry likes, decreases as more
opportunities emerge to learn about
relationship-specific quality prior to
committing to marriage. The degree of
assortative mating is also decreasing in the
commitment level of relationship forms.
Finally, it is shown that the emergence of
relationship forms like cohabitation is
consistent with an increase in the net benefits
to dating. The results are applied to
explain some observations about cohabitation,
interracial relationships, and the relation
between them.
This
paper studies global social interactions in a
stylized model of marriage and divorce with
complementarities across agents. The key
point of departure from traditional models of
social interactions is that actions are
interrelated and sequential. The presence
of strategic complementarities is no longer
sufficient to generate a social multiplier that
exceeds one in this environment.
Self-fulfilling conformity, whereby a greater
desire to conform at the individual level leads
to greater homogeneity of choices in the
aggregate, is not retained either.
However, uniqueness under moderate social
influence is preserved. As a by-product of
the uniqueness result, I also obtain a global
asymptotic stability result for implicitly
defined discrete dynamic systems.
Keywords:
social interactions, social multiplier,
self-fulfilling conformity, uniqueness under
moderate social influence
Works in Progress
1.
The Social Multiplier and Multidimensional Choice
Sets
