The impact of access to legal services on divorce outcomes

Abstract

A long literature has established that divorce is an important channel for married individuals to escape unhealthy circumstances. The complexity and high personal stakes of divorce may mean that true access to divorce hinges on access to legal services. Leveraging variation in access to legal services across geography and over time, we estimate the impact of this access on divorce in the United States. Using data from the Legal Services Corporation on legal service provision by geographic area and data from the American Community Survey on divorce and household income, we find that having access to legal services in a given year leads to an additional 2.5 to 3.5 divorces per 1000 income-eligible individuals, an approximately 7 to 9 percent increase in divorce. This magnitude is on par with historical work on the rollout of the first national legal services program. The identified effect is robust to several controls, is not driven purely by spatial variation in divorce rates, and is not sensitive to alternative specifications. These findings underscore the importance of access to legal services in civil contexts.