PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Yuting Huang
AU  - Juan Pantano
AU  - Han Ye
AU  - Junjian Yi
TI  - Property Division upon Divorce and Household Decisions
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.58.4.0519-10243R3
DP  - 2021 Apr 13
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0519-10243R3
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2021/04/05/jhr.58.4.0519-10243R3.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2021/04/05/jhr.58.4.0519-10243R3.full
AB  - Before 2011, Chinese married couples expected equal-division of housing property upon divorce even when the home was titled only under the husband's name and bought by the husband before marriage. In 2011, a Supreme Court decision led to enforcement of a title-based regime, only for housing property purchased before marriage and brought into the marriage by one of the spouses. We investigate the effects of this legal change using a difference-in-differences design. We find that this legal change weakened wives’ intrahousehold bargaining power, leading to reductions in their leisure, increased consumption of male-favored goods, and reduced investment in children.