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  3. 2024
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  5. Marriage Markets, Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility
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Marriage Markets, Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 12:30 PM - 2:15 PM (CST)

Grand Hyatt, Bowie B/C
Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Martha Bailey, University of California-Los Angeles

Assessing Racial and Educational Segmentation in Large Marriage Markets

Edoardo Ciscato
,
KU Leuven

Abstract

Complementarities between partners' characteristics are often held responsible for the patterns of assortative mating observed in marriage markets along different dimensions, such as race and education. However, when the marriage market is segmented into racially and educationally homogeneous clusters, people naturally have more match opportunities with their likes. In this paper, we build an empirically tractable dynamic matching model with endogenous separation and remarriage. In every period, agents participate to a competitive assignment game in the vein of Choo and Siow (2006) where mating strategies depend on both the expected match gains and search frictions in the form of meeting costs. We leverage panel data on the duration of both non-cohabiting and cohabiting relationships to jointly estimate both determinants of assortative mating with a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population. We show that racial segmentation is much more important than complementarities in explaining the prevalence of racial homogamy, whereas educational complementarities play an important role in understanding assortative mating with respect to education. Our results show that, in absence of search frictions, the share of matches between people of the same race (education) would decrease from 88% (49%) to 55% (41%), as opposed to 53% (34%) if singles were randomly matched.

Race, Class, and Mobility in U.S. Marriage Markets

Ariel J. Binder
,
U.S. Census Bureau
Caroline Walker
,
U.S. Census Bureau
Jonathan Eggleston
,
U.S. Census Bureau
Marta Murray-Close
,
U.S. Census Bureau

Abstract

We document racial-ethnic disparities in family income across generations by linking American Community Survey respondents born in 1978-87 to their parents’ tax records. Conditional on childhood family income (CFI), Black non-Hispanic women obtain 60 percent less income from a romantic partner than do White non-Hispanic women, driven by a lower propensity to partner and a lower partner CFI rank. These marriage market dynamics account for 84-90 percent of the observed family income mobility gap. Mobility gaps are larger in birth areas with greater CFI inequality and racial-ethnic segregation. We develop a segmented matching model to interpret our findings.

Marital Sorting and Inequality: How Educational Categorization Matters

Ana Reynoso
,
University of Michigan
Frederik Almar
,
Aarhus University
Benjamin Friedrich
,
Northwestern University
Bastian Schulz
,
Aarhus University
Rune Vejlin
,
Aarhus University

Abstract

This paper revisits the link between education-based marriage market sorting and income inequality. Leveraging Danish administrative data, we develop a novel categorization of marriage market types based on the starting wages and wage growth trajectories associated with educational programs: ambition types. We find a substantial increase in sorting by educational ambition over time, which explains more than 40% of increasing inequality since 1980. In contrast, sorting trends are flat with the commonly used level of education. Hence, the mapping between education and marriage-market types matters crucially for conclusions about the role of marital sorting in rising income inequality.

Marital Matching and Women’s Intergenerational Mobility in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century U.S.

Martha Bailey
,
University of California-Los Angeles
Peter Z. Lin
,
University of California-Los Angeles

Abstract

This paper characterizes the evolution of marital matching during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We find that age homogamy changed very little for women born over the 19th century, which makes the
rapid transition to smaller within-couple age gaps in the 20th century a departure from a 100-year trend.
As mass migration to the U.S. transformed the nation, the likelihood that a woman had a father-in-law
who was of similar nativity to her father decreased, suggesting that inter-marriage helped stir the U.S.
melting pot. Between 1900 and 1940, women’s intergenerational mobility in terms of her husband’s
occupational standing relative to her father’s increased, whereas the association of husbands’ and wives’
educational attainment changed little. We conclude that, even as a dynamic marriage market reduced the
importance of father’s heritage and occupational standing, women’s own educational attainment remained
a powerful force in shaping their socioeconomic status.

Discussant(s)
Paula Calvo
,
Arizona State University
Hanzhe Zhang
,
Michigan State University
Laura Pilossoph
,
Duke University
Bhashkar Mazumder
,
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
JEL Classifications
  • J1 - Demographic Economics
  • D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics