Public policies and private decisions: The effect of child support measures on marriage and divorce

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, the Survey of Labour Income Dynamics, 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.