College as a Marriage Market

Lars Kirkebøen, Edwin Leuven and Magne Mogstad

No 14264, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Recent descriptive work suggests the type of college education (field or institution) is an important but neglected pathway through which individuals sort into homogeneous marriages. These descriptive studies raise the question of why college graduates are so likely to marry someone within their own institution or field of study. One possible explanation is that individuals match on traits correlated with the choice of education, such as innate ability, tastes or family environment. Another possible explanation is that the choice of college education causally impacts whether and whom one marries, either because of search frictions or preferences for spousal education. The goal of this paper is to sort out these explanations and, by doing so, examine the role of colleges as marriage markets. Using data from Norway to address key identification and measurement challenges, we find that colleges are local marriage markets, mattering greatly for whom one marries, not because of the pre-determined traits of the admitted students but as a direct result of attending a particular institution at a given time.

Keywords: assortative mating; college; educational homogamy; field of study; marriage market; search frictions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 I23 I24 J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Working Paper: College as a Marriage Market (2021)
Working Paper: College as a Marriage Market (2021)
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