Some children stabilize marriage, others don’t

 From an economic perspective, children can be seen as an investment of the parents to increase the value of the marriage. In turn, children make a divorce more costly. A new IZA discussion paper by Héctor Bellido, José Alberto Molina, Anne Solaz and
Elena G. F. Stancanelli tests this theoretical argument on U.S. data. The authors confirm that children can have a stabilizing effect, but this is not always the case. The results indicate that children conceived during marriage significantly reduce the probability of marital disruption. The authors show: the younger the children, the greater the deterrent effect, and the higher the parents’ level of education, the larger the positive effect of fertility on marital stability. In contrast, children conceived before marriage are found to increase the risk of marital disruption.