The Right Coast |
|
|
Thoughts from San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture
Right Coasters
Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Email Us Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Links Andrew Sullivan Atlantic Blog The Buck Stops Here Corporate Law Blog Crescat Sententia Crooked Timber Curmudgeonly Clerk Daniel Drezner En Banc EveTushnet.Com FreeSpace How Appealing Instapundit Law and Econ Blog Little Green Footballs Legal Theory Blog The Leiter Reports Marginal Revolution Overlawyered Pejmanesque ProfBainbridge.Com Punishment Theory Rasmusen Weblog SFA Politics & Relig Southern Appeal SpoonsExperience USS Clueless The Volokh Conspiracy The Yin Blog Archives The Bear Flag League Aaron's Rantblog (LA) Absinthe & Cookies Accidental Jedi (Fres) Angry Clam (LA) Baldilocks BlogoSFERICS (Expat) BoifromTroy (LA) CalBlog (Los Angeles) California Republic Citizen Smash(SD) Cobb (Los Angeles) Daily Pundit (SF) Dale Franks e-Claire(Northern CA) Fresh Potatoes(Orang) Infinite Monkeys The Interocitor (LA) The Irish Lass (Sacra) Left Coast Conserv. Lex Communis (Fres) Master of None (LA) Miller's Time (Sac) Molly's Musings (SD) Mulatto Boy (LA) Howard Owens (Vent) Pathetic Earthlings) Patio Pundit Patterico's Pontifications(LA) PrestoPundit (Orange) QandO Right on the Left Beach Shark Blog (Expat) Slings and Arrows (SD) So. Cal Law Blog (LA) Tone Cluster Window Manager Xrlq (Orange) 
|
October 07, 2003
Mystery of Divorce and Daughters Solved! By Tom Smith My colleage Shaun Martin makes a very insightful point: I don't know [Shaun writes] whether anyone else has made the connection, but here's my take on the subject. The problem with the existing theories (the ones that didn't persuade you on slate.com) is that they conflate causation and correlation. It's not that baby girls tend to cause divorce more than baby boys; rather, it is that the things that tend to cause baby girls also tend to cause divorce. Absurd, you say? What could possibly cause both baby girls and divorce? It seems that the answer is simple: Stress. At least (for the former point) according to the latest -- fairly large -- study of births in Germany from 1946 to 1999 http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/09/16_stress.shtml It is fairly clear that stress -- particularly economic stress -- causes divorce. So if stress -- particularly economic stress -- tends to increase the number of baby girls, that explains why couples who have baby girls more frequently get divorced. It's not because of the baby girl; rather, it's from what helped to cause the girl in the first place. And no, I don't mean the sex part. I mean the stress. If Shaun keeps up this kind of clear thinking, he's bound to become a Republican. Shaun made the news in San Diego this summer with a lawsuit to reform the recall ballot (which he won). |