Does the Unilateral Divorce Laws Cause Child Weight Gain?

Rafaela Nogueira Carvalho
2020 Economic Analysis of Law Review  
This paper studies the impact of unilateral divorce laws on child weight gain. I use difference-in-differences approach exploiting time and state variation in the adoption of the unilateral divorce law. I analyze a comprehensive nationwide health examination survey (NHANES I) during 1971-1974. The results show that exposure to unilateral divorce law leads to bigger Body Mass Index (BMI) for children between 2 and 18 years.However, according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
more » ... this weight gain is still under the normality patterns. I also investigate the possibles transmission mechanisms for the increase in BMI. Results indicate that for the specic age group of children between 7 and 18 years the exposure to unilateral divorce law leads to bigger BMI and bigger probability to be overweight.
doi:10.31501/ealr.v11i1.9793 fatcat:yidalldv3zeo3pkkc7yx5cmaky