Divorce and female labour force participation: Do women who expect an upcoming divorce increase their employment? Evidence from Flanders

Abstract

Women who expect an upcoming divorce have the possibility of taking action in order to protect themselves against the projected negative financial consequences. In this paper we investigate whether they do. Using retrospective data for a sample of 884 divorced women from the Divorce in Flanders (DiF)-survey, we estimate the difference in the probability that women increase their employment intensity surrounding the time a couple stops living together between women who expected the divorce and those who did not. We find that in the year leading up to the factual separation, women who expect the divorce are three to five times more likely to increase their employment. Our results suggest that when anticipatory employment behaviour is not considered when researching the negative consequences of relationship dissolution, both the magnitude of the downturn as well as the time to recovery is likely underestimated for a large group of women.