Abstract
In the article we test the hypothesis that the weakening of family ties, as measured by the reduction in the number of marriages, a cascade of divorces and the decrease in the fertility rate, has brought about an economic slowdown in Poland. We also suppose that the economic growth and increased standard of living influence the increasing number of marriages, the fertility rate, and results in a decreasing number of divorces.
We verify these hypotheses using an econometric model of economic growth with the family social capital. The model consists of seven stochastic equations and exhibits the feedback between GDP, labour productivity and some variables representing social capital, in particular the marriage disintegration ratio.
We try to verify the hypothesis of the existence of an optimal divorce rate for economic growth.