Sin City? Why is the Divorce Rate Higher in Urban Areas?*
基于丹麦登记数据，研究发现城市中结婚的夫妇若留在城市，离婚率比搬离者高23%，但控制选择性迁移后，城市对离婚风险的因果效应大幅下降且不再显著。
Abstract Divorce rates are higher in cities. Based on Danish register data, this paper shows that of the marriages formed in the city, those couples who remain in the city have a 23% higher divorce rate than those who move out. In this paper, we test whether this observation is due to sorting of more stable marriages into rural areas or if there exists a causal effect of living in urban areas on marriage instability. Our identification strategy supplements the timing‐of‐events approach with an instrumental variable. Our findings suggest that the effect of living in an urban area on the divorce risks drops substantially and loses statistical significance once we address sorting.