Corinne Low
Economist at Wharton.
“What you need if you're going to do this is really good insurance that you are going to be okay if this marriage doesn't last. And so the paper shows that buying a home serves as that insurance because the home is going to be divided in the case of divorce. And so we see that couples who own homes are more likely to specialize.”
The Stacking Benjamins Show · Money & Markets · October 2026
Low explains her paper "Collateralized Marriage." After the divorce revolution of the 1970s, women stopped specializing in home and children because it left them exposed. A shared house acts as divorce insurance, and homeowning couples are more likely to have one partner step back from work.
Transcript
Yes, if you do that, then you know, that's really being a provider today, okay? I don't want
…you heard about them, you got to let them know it's because you're a stacker. You heard them on the Stacking Benjamin show. It's the best way to support the show. Let's go back to the line that opened the show. Unpack this. Why is buying a house together basically buying insurance against divorce?
…to work part-time sometime during her career. Maybe they both start out at law firms working 60, 70 hours a week. And then they decide it's better for him to work 80 and make partner and for her to switch into a supporting role at the law firm to switch into recruiting or, you know, something that's not client-facing. See this in a lot of couples. His income grows and hers doesn't grow as much. What you need if you're going to do this is really good insurance that you are going to be okay if this marriage doesn't last. And so the paper shows that buying a home serves as that insurance because the home is going to be divided in the case of divorce. And so we see that couples who own homes are more likely to specialize. And again, not that extreme specialization of the past, but are more likely to have a little bit of that safety where she can invest more at home and in the kids and he can invest more in the career. And we see it pay off in his career. He actually earns more and we see it pay off in the outcomes that we see for the family.
They talk about in good movie making that a good movie has high stakes. They're not just fighting like some of these superhero movies drive me crazy because they're fighting and I'm like, okay, when this 50 minutes gets over, you know, so I generally don't like those. But when the characters have…
Yeah. And we're both showing, right, that we have skin in the game. And therefore, it also nudges you to say, when times get hard, let's figure out how to renegotiate our terms rather than turning to that batna, right? Because now, you know, you kind of have more invested in that joint capital. And…
Well, and I look at it the other way as let's get away from that traditional role. Let's flip it. Let's say that her career has more upside potential. She's really loving what she does. He's not loving what he does. And maybe we flip the traditional roles. You've done studies that show that she is…
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