Do young women trade jobs for marriage? A skeptical view

This paper takes a skeptical view of the theory that the slight decline in young women's labor-force participation from 1985 to 1990 can be explained by the fact that there are fewer women now in their early twenties than there are men in their late twenties so that women currently have more bargaining power in the marriage market than men do.The paper argues that the assumption behind this theory, that for women marriage and employment are substitutes, is outmoded. It also contends that the theory leaves out the importance of full-time schooling as an activity alternative to employment and that in fact the increase in full-time schooling among young women has been much greater than the slight decrease in their labor-force participation.Several questions are raised about the statistical test of the theory and also about the reasons why the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article on the slight decline in young women's labor-force participation and featured the marriage market theory as an explanation for this purported new trend.     

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 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.     

Women's education and marriage decisions: Evidence from China

The faster increase in education among women compared with men has been underexplored. Thus, using Chinese data, we evaluate the impacts of a plausibly exogenous increase in educational attainment on women's marriage decisions. An extra year of education does not change women's decision to marry and leads to a brief delay of 0.12 years in their marriage age on average, which is much smaller than the delay among men. Although more educated women and men both have improved labour market outcomes, which may have increased their patience, men experience larger income growth than women do. Moreover, declining physical attractiveness at least partly explains why the delay is less than 1 year. Overall, the results are more reliable after addressing the endogeneity issue.     

Why the marriage squeeze cannot cause dowry inflation

An influential explanation for rising dowry payments is the “marriage squeeze”. The present paper shows this explanation to be internally inconsistent. The marriage squeeze argument for inflation relies on the fact that population growth leads to an excess supply of brides in the marriage market. This excess supply is resolved by some women postponing marriage, so that the average age of brides increases. In previous studies the argument is stated informally. Here, a matching model of marriage is developed to formally analyze the link between dowry payments and population growth. It is shown that a marriage squeeze cannot yield dowry inflation. In fact, when women who do not find matches at the ‘desirable’ marrying age re-enter the marriage market as older brides, a marriage squeeze is shown to imply dowry deflation. Population change is therefore not a promising explanation for the observed increases in dowry payments.     

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.     

Do not sell marriage short: Reply to strober

This paper explains why marriage market conditions may affect the participation of women in the labor force. In particular, it is claimed that changes in cohort size affect marriage market conditions and therefore women's labor-force participation. The paper also indicates how a theory of labor and marriage based on market analysis can possibly help women's causes. The paper first addresses theoretical issues raised by Strober. It then responds to her critique of empirical work.     

An inquiry into the state's role in marriage

The role of the state in the institution of marriage is explored. The author argues that government intervention in marriage is a means of avoiding large transaction costs between men and women. Such intervention is successful because marriage creates incentives that make private enforcement relatively costly and because marriages tend to be homogenous. The hypothesis is tested by examining U.S. state responses to changing divorce laws. The author concludes that such responses are consistent with the state increasing the social value of marriage by mitigating transaction costs.     

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.     

Notes on marriage markets with weak externalities

We consider marriage markets with externalities. We focus on weak externalities, that is, markets in which each agent is primarily concerned about her partner. We formalize and prove the claim that weak externalities are not so significant in the marriage market: in this case, the ω-core and the α-core coincide and are both nonempty. In addition, we show that, if we allow agents to block matchings without changing their mate, the results do not longer hold.     

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."     

CROSS‐BORDER MARRIAGE COSTS AND MARRIAGE BEHAVIOR: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This article analyzes cross‐border marriages between mainland China and Hong Kong (HK). We examine the effects of a reduction in cross‐border marriage costs following an increase in marriage‐migration quotas and the handover of HK to China. We find that cross‐border marriages mainly involve men from the low tail of the HK attribute distribution. We also find that HK women's position in the marriage market and within households deteriorated following the reduction in cross‐border marriage costs and that their disadvantaged position exerts an incentive effect on their labor market behavior. These outcomes are consistent with our matching model.     

ON THE EMERGENCE OF TOYBOYS: THE TIMING OF MARRIAGE WITH AGING AND UNCERTAIN CAREERS*

We explore how gender bias in career opportunities affects matching in a marriage market with search frictions and where an individual’s fitness decays with age. We document a “being left on the shelf” effect where young singles, who find the marriage market rapidly thins with age, rush into early partnership. Singles with stronger career opportunities, however, have a greater option value to defer marriage. More equal career opportunities for women (captured by greater schooling and better occupations) potentially explain the recent emergence of toyboy unions, in which the woman is at least 5 years older than her partner.     

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.     

The “Make‐up” of a Regression Coefficient: Gender Gaps in the European Labor Market

We provide a comprehensive picture of the relationship between labor market outcomes and age by gender in the 28 European countries covered by the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. The analysis is based on a somewhat unconventional approach that refers to concentration curves in the Gini regression framework. It allows identification of ranges in the explanatory variables where local slopes change sign and/or size, i.e. the components that “make up” a regression coefficient. Gender is a crucial factor differentiating participation among workers, although employment–age profiles do not substantially differ. Relevant differences in age profiles concern working‐hours patterns: some countries are characterized by an almost specular behavior in men and women; other countries instead show similar patterns. Generally, earnings increase with age for both men and women. However, local regression coefficients are not monotonic over the entire age range and can even be locally negative in some countries.     

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.     

Roots of gender equality: the persistent effect of beguinages on attitudes toward women

This paper is concerned with the historical roots of gender equality. It proposes and empirically assesses a new determinant of gender equality: gender-specific outside options in the marriage market. In particular, enlarging women’s options besides marriage—even if only temporarily—increases their bargaining power with respect to men, leading to a persistent improvement in gender equality. We illustrate this mechanism focusing on Belgium, and relate gender-equality levels in the 19th century to the presence of medieval, female-only communities called beguinages that allowed women to remain single amidst a society that traditionally advocated marriage. Combining geo-referenced data on beguinal communities with 19th-century census data, we document that the presence of beguinages contributed to decrease the gender gap in literacy. The reduction is sizeable, amounting to a 12.3% drop in gender educational inequality. Further evidence of the beguinal legacy is provided leveraging alternative indicators of female agency.

     

Women's Labor Force Participation and Status Exchange in Intermarriage: A Model and Evidence for Hawaii1

Women's labor force participation, ethnic status and interracial marriage are examined in this paper to test Grossbard-Shechtman's marriage market theory. Perceived racial and ethnic group status is found to be an important attribute in marriage market exchange that combines marriage and working outside the home. Caucasian women, who have a higher perceived ethnic status, tend not to work when they marry men of a lower perceived ethnic status, while the opposite is found of women who have a lower perceived group status and who marry into a higher-status group. This is especially of women with low education, while highly educated women are less affected by compensating differentials at marriage as related to ethnic status of the couple. Ethnic groups that have a recent immigration history also have a different pattern of intermarriage and women's labor force participation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Educational Attainment and the Gender Wage Gap: A Comparison of Young Men and Women in 1984 and 2007

This study pools data from two sources to investigate the role of educational attainment in determining the gender wage gap. The empirical analysis reveals that the returns to education remained largely unchanged for young men but declined significantly for young women over the period 1984–2007. We find significant evidence of a decline in the returns to a Bachelor's degree for young women as well as evidence of increasing wage inequality over time among young men and women with a Bachelor's degree. Also, in 2007, the gender wage gap between young men and women was largest for those with a Bachelor's degree. Further, our analysis suggests that young women with a college education may confront more discrimination in the labor market than young women without a college education. We conclude that promoting educational attainment among young women may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for addressing the gender wage gap.     

THE ROLE OF LABOR AND MARRIAGE MARKETS,PREFERENCE HETEROGENEITY,AND THE WELFARE SYSTEM IN THE LIFE CYCLE DECISIONS OF BLACK,HISPANIC, AND WHITE WOMEN*

Using data from the NLSY79, we structurally estimate a dynamic model of the life cycle decisions of young women. The women make sequential joint decisions about school attendance, work, marriage, fertility, and welfare participation. We use the model to perform counterfactual simulations designed to shed light on three questions: (1) How much of observed minority–majority differences in behavior can be attributed to differences in labor market opportunities, marriage market opportunities, and preference heterogeneity? (2) How does the welfare system interact with these factors to augment those differences? (3) How can new cohorts that grow up under the new welfare system (Temporary Aid for Needy Families) be expected to behave compared to older cohorts?