LabFam seminar “Policy Reform and Employment after Divorce: Evidence from the German Maintenance Reform of 2008” [20.06.2023]

During the coming LabFam seminar prof. Michaela Kreyenfeld (Hertie School Berlin) will present the research “Policy Reform and Employment after Divorce: Evidence from the German Maintenance Reform of 2008” conducted with Daniel Brüggmann (German Pension Fund), Sarah Schmauk (Humboldt University Berlin), Katharina Wrohlich (DIW).

The seminar will be held on June 20th 2023 at 1 p.m. in room A103 and will be held in English.

In order to take part in the seminar please register at: https://labfam.uw.edu.pl/event/policy-reform-and-employment-after-divorce-evidence-from-the-german-maintenance-reform-of-2008/?fbclid=IwAR0q3puNOjiMWeJdLvvgJEopN6b9MWipbpYQnA7h79zlmoebsnGG4eMztb8.

Abstract:

In 2008, the German government enacted a maintenance reform (Unterhaltsrechtsreform). Prior to this reform, ex-spousal maintenance was based on the principle of ex-spousal solidarity. The reform refuted that principle and replaced by the principle of ‘self-reliance’ of the ex-partners. In practise, it meant that ex-spousal support was restricted to few and exceptional cases. In this paper, we use register data from the German Public Pension Fund to examine the effect of the Maintenance Reform on the employment and earnings of divorced women and men in Germany. The data ‘VSKT’ (Versichertenkontenstichprobe) of the years 2019 to 2021 provide monthly earnings and employment histories of roughly 4.5 million persons. As a method, we adopt a triple diff-and-diff approach (Olden & Møen 2021) to model the causal effect of the reform.