The value of youth: equalizing age differentials in marriages

The objective of this paper is to present a model of constrained utility-maximizing behaviour which is able to explain serveral features of marriage. The model predicts that individuals meet in the marriage market and trade characteristics, in which they are relatively well endowed, to obtain characteristics in which they are less well endowed. The model implies a positive age differential in favour of the husband due to biological differences. This differential is shown to be attentuated by differences in earnings capacity and human capital investments. The model also has implications for dynamic aspects of marriage and provides an explanation for the secular increase in female' age of first marriage and the difficulty experienced by females in the post thirty-year age group in finding suitable partners. An examination of unit record data on residents of metropolitan California from the 1980 United States Census reveals systematic patterns in the data are consistent with the theory.     

Marriage Settlements

French couples may choose between two types of marriage settlements governing asset ownership after a divorce or inheritance: common property or separate property. A cooperative model considers the marriage contract as a means of providing for widowhood of the less endowed spouse. A second model addresses the probability of divorce and the production of a marriage good. The common property contract then becomes a means of inducing the wife to invest in the marriage good. Choice of contract, labor supply and fertility are simultaneous. Empirically we find that characteristics of the spouses such as relative age or differences in endowments influence the choice. So do the expected number of children and the wife's labor supply decision. This last decision is also shown to be influenced by the chosen settlement, while fertility is not.
JEL classification : J 12; J 4; K 12     

Age at marriage in Malaysia: a hazard model of marriage timing

"This paper estimates a proportional hazards model for the timing of age at marriage of women in Malaysia. We hypothesize that age at marriage responds significantly to differences in male and female occupations, race, and age. We find considerable empirical support for the relevance of economic variables in determining age at marriage as well as evidence of strong differences in marriage patterns across races."     

Class, gender and marriage

This paper estimates the contributions of differential fecundity, social heterogeneity, assortative matching and search frictions to aggregate marriage behavior in 18th century Quebec. The reduced form estimates show that a simple random matching model of the marriage market, in which there are gains to assortative matching and women may leave the marriage market at a higher rate than men, can explain these data. The estimates also show that the marriage market was segmented by social status.     

The Effect of Education on the Timing of Marriage and First Birth in Pakistan

A rapid rise in women’s education levels, an increase in the age at marriage and an increase in the age at which they have their first child are key features of demographic transition in any country. Education is considered to be an essential component in this process because increases in educational attainment are likely to significantly affect both age at marriage and the duration between marriage and first birth - in particular increasing both the age at marriage and the time to first child. This paper uses individual level unit record data from Pakistan to examine the effect of education on the age at marriage and on the duration between marriage and first birth. We jointly estimate educational attainment, age at marriage and duration between marriage and first birth allowing for household level unobserved heterogeneity. We find that educational attainment increases the age at marriage but does not have a statistically significant effect on the duration between marriage and first birth. However, there is a threshold level of education that must be attained before educational attainment starts having an effect on the hazard of marriage.

     

Age at marriage,social norms,and female education in Nepal

We study the impact of age at marriage on female education. We hypothesize that in cultures where women marry young, parents discount the pecuniary benefits of educating girls; the earlier the anticipated age at marriage the greater this discount. We empirically test this effect using household data from Nepal. We control for potential endogeneity of age at marriage by exploiting variations in cultural norms regarding dowry and differences in the average age of female marriage among ethnicities and regions as instrumental variables. The econometric results support the hypothesis that female education is negatively affected by cultural norms that favor early marriage.     

城市两性初婚年龄模式分析——基于中国综合社会调查2005年度数据

国人婚配年龄的变迁,一直缺乏长期性数据;婚配市场的实际情况,也缺乏实证性的长期数据。利用CGSS2005数据,对五代人(20世纪20年代—20世纪70年代)的平均初婚年龄的变化、趋势加以研究,对男性和女性初婚年龄、早婚、不婚、晚婚、集中成婚等进行了横向和纵向的比较,揭示了各自独立和彼此承接的关系和特点。     

SINGLE MOMS AND DEADBEAT DADS: THE ROLE OF EARNINGS,MARRIAGE MARKET CONDITIONS,AND PREFERENCE HETEROGENEITY

Why do some men father children outside of marriage without providing support? Why do some women have children outside of marriage when they receive little support from fathers? Why is this behavior more common among Blacks than Whites? We estimate a dynamic equilibrium model of marriage, employment, fertility, and child support decisions. We consider the extent to which low earnings, marriage market conditions, and preference heterogeneity explain nonmarital childbearing, deadbeat fatherhood, and racial differences in these outcomes. We find the Black–White earnings gap and preference heterogeneity explain a substantial portion of racial differences, whereas marriage market conditions are less important.     

Marriage, BMI, and wages: a double selection approach

Obesity rates have been rising over the past decade. As more people become obese, the social stigma of obesity may be reduced. Marriage has typically been used as a positive signal to employers. If obese individuals possess other characteristics that are valued in the labour market they may no longer face a wage penalty for their physical appearance. This paper investigates the relationship between marital status, body mass index (BMI), and wages by estimating a double selection model that controls for selection into the labour and marriage markets using waves 14 and 16 (2004 and 2006) of the British Household Panel Survey. Results suggest that unobserved characteristics related to marriage and labour market participation are causing an upward bias on the BMI coefficients. The BMI coefficient is positive and significant for married men only in the double selection model. The findings provide evidence that unobserved characteristics related to success in the marriage and labour market may influence the relationship between BMI and wages.     

ACCOUNTING FOR THE TIMING OF FIRST MARRIAGE*

Among first marriages in the United States, grooms are on average 1.7 years older than their brides. Traditionally, this fact is explained by sex differences in income. We use a general equilibrium, overlapping generations search model economy to show instead that sex differences in fecundity are essential to account for the age gap at first marriage, whereas sex differences in income play a secondary role. Our model economy also accounts for other facts on the timing of first marriages that the literature has overlooked.     

Accounting for age in marital search decisions

Spouse quality, measured by educational attainment, varies significantly with the age at which an individual marries, peaking in the mid-twenties then declining through the early-forties. Interestingly, this decline is much sharper for women than men, meaning women increasingly marry less educated men as they age. Moreover, quality has worsened for educated women over several decades, while it has improved for men. Using a non-stationary sequential search model, we identify and quantify the search frictions that generate these age-dependent marriage outcomes. We find that single-life utility is typically the dominant friction, though college women in the 1950 and 1970 cohorts are affected even more by deteriorating suitor quality. Regardless of educational status, individual choice (as opposed to pure luck) is pivotal in explaining marriage market outcomes earlier in life.     

Women's Intrahousehold Decision-Making Power and Their Health Status: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This study examines how various determinants of women's decision-making power affect their health status in rural Ethiopia. It identifies the determinants of women's decision-making power using a qualitative survey conducted over 2008–9, and it investigates their effects on women's health status using the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey panel dataset for the period 1994–2004. The study finds that women's health status is positively associated with their education, the number of brothers they have, whether they live in their birthplace, and whether their age is close to that of their husband. In contrast, women's health is negatively associated with whether they are in a marriage of their choice compared to an arranged marriage. The study concludes that multiple factors originating from context-specific gender norms affect women's decision-making power and have differential effects on women's health outcomes.     

Population Genetics and Economic Growth

This paper builds an age-structured model of human population genetics in which explicit individual choices drive the dynamics via sexual selection. In the model, agents are endowed with a high-dimensional genome that determines their cognitive and physical characteristics. Young adults optimally search for a marriage partner, work for firms, consume goods, save for old age and, if married, decide how many children to have. In accord with the fundamental genetic operators, children receive genes from their parents. An agent's human capital (productivity) is an aggregate of the received genetic endowment and environmental influences so that the population of agents and the economy co-evolve. After calibrating the model, we examine the impact of physical, social, and economic institutions on population growth and economic performance. We find that institutional factors significantly impact economic performance by affecting marriage, family size, and the intergenerational transmission of genes. The principal novel findings are that i) genetic diversity has a nonmonotone causal impact on population size and economic performance; ii) an endogenous population threshold exists which, absent frictions, causes societies with declining populations and output to reverse course and grow; and iii) that the emotion love substantially accelerates economic growth by increasing genetic diversity just enough, which we term The Goldilocks Principle.     

Correlates of fertility in Eastern Nigeria

The relative influences of marriage patterns, education, and religion on the high level of fertility in the East-Central state of Nigeria are examined, with data drawn from a KAP survey of 755 men and 916 women (745 rural and 171 urban). Polygynous marriages existed in 31% of rural and 7% of urban households surveyed. Fertility was relatively lower in all marriage duration groups among polygynists, but the differences were not significant (contingency coefficient 0.01000). Results are limited, however, by the instability of polygyny status, the subfecundity factor, the index of fertility used, and the older age of polygynously married women. 53% of rural women surveyed were Catholic, and their fertility was higher than that of non-Catholics (contingency coefficient 0.01217). But it cannot be ensured that the religious differential is solely a function of pronatalist religious belief or partly a reflection of ethnic differences or an attempt by the Ibos to ensure an increase in population to maximize their share of federal allocations. Uneducated women were more fertile than their educated counterparts (contingency coefficient 0.03129), implying that fertility will decline as the literacy level in the state improves. The potential of education to effectuate a decline in fertility is illustrated by the observation that education tends to give religious people the same liberal attitudes toward family planning as are held by those who are less religious. The gap between knowledge of birth control methods and the practice of family planning is a greater obstacle to fertility control than religiousity, and this gap is greater among those with lower levels of education.     

An extended household model of eldercare by children and children‐in‐law based on Far‐Eastern traditions

A model of informal caregiving is presented in which decisions are made by extended households including parents and children. An extended household possibly has both a demand and a supply of elder caregiving by children‐in‐law. A patrilocal version of the model, inspired from traditional Chinese marriage institutions adopted by a number of countries in the Far East, leads to derived demands for caregiving by daughters‐in‐law and supplies of caregiving by families of daughters. Market equilibrium prices for caregiving by children‐in‐law are established. These prices then provide incentives to which individual households respond. Payments can be made during, before, or after marriage. The model can throw light on gender differences in marital happiness, differences in the impact of eldercare on the health of in‐family caregivers and on their happiness, and East/West and regional differences in caregiving obligations of family members. It also suggests that these geographic differentials may be related to variation in family institutions, including variation in the prevalence of dowry and brideprice. The policy relevance of the model is discussed.     

大城市白领居住模式的人口学特征分析——以上海市静安区为例

白领群体的居住模式受多因素的影响,除了当前商品房价格、房地产政策及金融政策因素外,该群体的内在特征及对住房的结构性需求也是主要的影响因素。根据调查数据,在分析框架的基础上,构建了多元logistic回归模型。户籍、性别、收入、婚姻及是否独生子女是影响城市白领居住模式的主要影响因素,年龄、受教育程度、职位、职业也起到了重要作用。     

Building the Family Nest: Premarital Investments, Marriage Markets, and Spousal Allocations

We develop a transferable utility model of the household in which the marriage market is characterized by (negative or positive) assortative matching, and spousal allocations are determined by premarital investments. We demonstrate that all sharing rules along the assortative order support efficient outcomes both in terms of premarital investments and intra-household allocations. The efficiency of premarital choices and household allocations then enables us to show that, for each couple, the marriage market generates a unique and maritally sustainable sharing rule that is a function of the distribution of premarital endowments and the sex ratios in the market. According to our results, transfers among spouses occur on two margins: premarital investments and intra-marital spousal allocations. Asymmetries in the sex ratios in the marriage markets produce gender differences in premarital investments and consumption that are larger for individuals with small premarital endowments than those with larger endowments. A corollary of these findings is that, when men are in short supply in the marriage markets, women can invest more than men even when the returns to investment are lower or the costs are higher for women.     

Female first marriage in East and Southeast Asia: a Kiefer-Neumann model

Many studies have shown that schooling levels of husband and wife are important determinants of household behavior in developing countries. This article asks how the schooling levels of husband and wife come to be associated with each other through the marriage market. The Kiefer-Neumann model of labor market search is adapted to marital search, the aim being to explain both the positive sorting on educational levels for spouses, and the positive relationship between female schooling and age at 1st marriage. World Fertility Survey data for Indonesia, Korea, and Malaysia are employed in the analyses.     

The timing of first marriage and subsequent life outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment

We study the consequences of later marriage on subsequent life outcomes. China’s family planning policies in the early 1970s – before the One-Child Policy – regulated not only childbirth but also marriage. The recommended minimum marriage age of 25 years for men and 23 years for women was effectively relaxed when the government formally introduced the One-Child Policy and put greater emphasis on directly controlling fertility rather than marriage. Subsequently, we find that the marriage age, which had been increasing steadily since 1970, suddenly started to decline in the early 1980s. This policy shift provides us with an opportunity to apply a regression probability jump and kink design for the purpose of identification. Using data from the 2000 census, we establish that later-married men have fewer children and that later-married women are more likely to participate in the labor market. We find no consistent evidence that later marriage improves education, probably because most Chinese people marry after completing their education.