The next Economics Seminar of Paris—Saclay will take place on Friday 13 January, from 12:15 to 13:15, at ENS.
Nicolas Frémeaux (Université Paris 2, LEMMA) will present ” A justice rendered by women for women? Evidence from marital separations” (joint with Sibylle Gollac).
Abstract:
In order to understand the role of law and justice in the gender wealth gap in contemporary France, we study the influence of the judges’ sex on decisions related to marital separations. We use a unique dataset of 3,000 judicial cases with detailed information about both the judges and the cases. We do not find any systematic effect of the judges’ sex category. The latter does not affect the decisions related to child physical custody and child support. However, female judges tend to grant a lower share of spousal compensatory benefits but when a benefit is granted, its value is larger than those granted by male judges. Information used and organizational constraints faced by judges can explain these results, which question the hypothesis of a feminist justice or a justice “rendered by women for women”.