Job Market Paper
Children, Household Specialization and Relationship Quality
SSRN Blogwith Belén Rodríguez Moro
We investigate how having children impacts the quality of couples' relationships, a proxy of the non-material gains from being in a relationship. Using a novel measure of relationship quality (RQ), we perform a dynamic difference-in-differences estimation around the birth of the first child. We find a sharp and lasting decrease in RQ immediately after birth. We attribute this effect to changes in household specialization. Traditional gender-based specialization prevails after birth, regardless of the baseline distribution of tasks within the couple. Leveraging heterogeneous changes in household specialization after birth, we find that couples undergoing larger rearrangements also suffer larger RQ drops.
Presented at (* by coauthor): Universitat Pompeu i Fabra*, 18th Doctorissimes Conference, Universitat de Barcelona*, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid*, Universidad de Salamanca*, 2023 BSE Jamboree*, 2323 EDP Jamboree*, 2023 Understanding Society Scientific Conference, 2023 EEA-ESEM congress*, 2023 EALE conference, 2023 Inequalities in Education, Labor Markets and Families EUI Conference, 48th SAEe symposium*, IZA Institute for Labor Economics, SOLE 2024, University of the Basque Country, XVI AEET Labor Economics Conference*
Working Papers
Measuring Relationship Quality
with Belén Rodríguez Moro
This paper introduces and validates a novel measure of relationship quality (RQ), the non-material gains from being in a relationship. We use survey data from the United Kingdom to construct and validate RQ, by demonstrating its predictive power for marital transitions and its comparability across individuals. We examine the evolution of RQ over time using panel data, testing common assumptions in the theoretical family economics literature. Our analysis reveals significant associations between RQ and individual and couple characteristics. The findings on the assortative matching on education underscore the importance of shared characteristics in enhancing RQ.
Work in Progress
The Geography of Jobs and Couple Migration
This paper studies how joint geographic constraints induced by partners' occupations influence couples' migration decisions. Using novel measures of geographic concentration and overlap of occupations, I find that highly concentrated occupations significantly limit couples' ability to relocate, although this is mitigated by the geographic overlap of partners' occupations. Additionally, I explore gender differences in occupational choices, showing that women, particularly college educated women, have increasingly selected into more geographically concentrated occupations. A shift-share decomposition reveals that the sharp decline in couple migration over the last few decades is primarily due to changes in migration patterns within different couple types rather than shifts in their composition.
Presented at: Economics of Migration Junior Seminar 2024
Until the City Do Us Part
with Ana Moreno-Maldonado and Belén Rodríguez Moro
In this project, we exploit geographical differences in marriage markets to unveil the main determinants of relationship quality as well as couple formation and dissolution. Using data for the United Kingdom, we show that big cities are characterized by a larger proportion of singles and by a lower stability of newly formed couples as compared to small cities. However, we also find that the risk of couple dissolution decreases faster in bigger cities and that the relationship quality of couples deteriorates at a slower pace. We then build a dynamic quantitative model of couple formation and dissolution that allows us to account for the endogeneity of location decisions and to quantify the importance of each mechanism in resulting relationship quality.