Work

Partner Choice and the Marital College Premium: Analyzing Marital Patterns Over Several Decades

Year: 2015

Type: preprint

Abstract: We construct a structural model of household decision-making and matching and estimate the returns to schooling within marriage. We consider agents with idiosyn- cratic preferences for marriage that may be correlated with education, and we allow the education levels of spouses to interact in producing joint surplus. Using US data on marriages of individuals born between 1943 and 1972, we show that the preference for assortative matching by education has significantly increased for the white population, particularly for highly educated individuals; but not for blacks. Moreover, in line with theoretical predictions, we find that the “marital college-plus premium” has increased for women but not for men.

Source: SSRN Electronic Journal

Authors: Pierre‐André Chiappori, Bernard Salanié, Yoram Weiss

Institutions: Columbia University, Ifo Institute for Economic Research, National Bureau of Economic Research, Tel Aviv University, IZA - Institute of Labor Economics

Language: English

Topic: Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

Subfield: Gender Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Reduced inequalities, Gender equality

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W1514384759

Cites: 31

Cited by: 21

Related to: 10