It is assumed that emotional ties can be relied on to enforce implicit marital contracts by "voice." Therefore, in the present model, divorce has economic consequences not only because the economies of scale from living together are destroyed but also because the scope for such "voice" enforcement is weakened. Moreover, perhaps surprisingly, I find that it is ambiguous how an increase in the probability of divorce influences predivorce allocation of time, even when preferences are assumed to be homothetic.

We study the residential choice of siblings who are altruistic towards their parents. The first-born child’s location choice influences the behavior of the second-born child and can shift some of the burden of providing care for the parents from one child to the other. These strategic considerations lead to an equilibrium location pattern with firstborn children locating further away from their parents than second-born children. We also analyze the location choices empirically using German data. These data confirm our theoretical predictions.