Unobserved heterogeneity in models of marriage dissolution.

The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of unobserved heterogeneity when analysing the determinants of marriage dissolution....When the unobserved heterogeneity is taken into consideration the divorce risks increase steadily with duration. This supports the view that the declining hazard found in most studies of marital instability is due to a selection mechanism. Our analysis also demonstrates that the unobservables account for a considerable amount of the population variation in divorce propensity compared to the amount accounted for by the observed covariates. Data are from the 1960 1970 and 1980 censuses of Norway. (EXCERPT)