Subject: Good News About No-Fault - Washington Post
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Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 13:52:48 -0800

Outlook

Bias in the Jury Box?

Richard Morin

1,024 words
21 March 2004
The
Washington Post
FINAL
B05
English
Copyright 2004, The Washington
Post Co. All Rights Reserved

Good
News About No-Fault

In
the past three decades, liberalized divorce laws have reduced suicides among
women, sparked a dramatic reduction in domestic violence and led to a decline in
women murdered by their partners, according to economists Betsey Stevenson and
Justin Wolfers.

Specifically,
they claim, these benefits have resulted from the adoption of so-called
"no-fault" divorce laws, in which one partner can end the marriage without the
consent of the other.

After
states adopted no-fault divorce laws, suicides among women dropped by 20
percent, the rate of domestic abuse fell by a third, and the number of women
murdered by their partners dropped by about 10 percent, Stevenson and Wolfers
found.

Adoption
of unilateral divorce laws didn't affect the suicide rate of men or the
likelihood that they would be murdered by their partners. But domestic violence
directed at both men and women declined, the researchers reported in a recent
National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.

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