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Divorce and Age of Marriage: Evidence from China's Heating Policy

We exploit China’s heating policy to identify the effects of the age of marriage on divorce. From the mid-1950s, the Chinese government provided cash allowances and free/subsidized coal or free/subsidized central heating to urban residents north of the Huai River but not to people who lived in rural areas or south of the river. We find that the heating policy is associated with the age of marriage being 7 months lower in the north than the south. By contrast, there is no north-south difference in age of marriage among rural people. Applying instrumental variables estimation, with the heating policy as an instrument for the age of marriage, we estimate that if the age of marriage is 7 months lower in the north, then the rate of divorce would be about 0.5 percentage points lower, which is almost the entire north-south difference in the divorce rate or about one-third of the average divorce rate of about 1.6 percent in the south. Our findings contrast with research showing that, among Americans, divorce declines with the age of marriage up to the late 20s. We find some evidence suggesting that the lower divorce rate is due to post-marital adaptive socialization.