The effects of the divorce law reform

This project studies the effects of a reform of the Swedish divorce laws in 1974 on children’s long-term outcomes and their families. The reform constituted a substantial liberalisation of the existing divorce process, along with a novel reconsideration period for families with children aged below 16 residing in the household. This change coincided with a marked increase in the number of divorces in Sweden. The project leverages the variation in family structure and birth cohort of children along with a ”difference-in-differences”-method for a causal evaluation of both elements of the reform. The project uses data on the full Swedish population from 1969.