Did Germany’s 1997 Anti-Marital Rape Law Improve Women’s Well-Being?

Abstract

This study examines the causal impact of Germany’s 1997 anti-marital rape law on women’s wellbeing. Using representative panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a difference-in-differences event study design, we compare married women, who are directly affected by the legal reform, with unmarried women, who act as the control group. We focus on three complementary measures of well-being: overall life satisfaction, subjective health satisfaction, and annual doctor visits. Contrary to expectations, our results reveal that overall life satisfaction among married women decreases by 1.7% following the intervention, with even larger effects for those with youngchildren. This result is robust to a placebo test and entropy balancing. In contrast, the law leads to a substantial reduction in annual doctor visits but has no significant effect on health satisfaction. Further analysis shows increased rates of divorce and separation among married women after the reform; while legal empowerment facilitates exits from problematic marriages, the process of marital dissolution may temporarily lower well-being.