Educational Homogamy: Preferences or Opportunities?

Helena Nielsen and Michael Svarer

No 2271, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Individuals match on length and type of education. We investigate whether the systematic relationship between educations of partners is explained by opportunities (e.g. low search frictions) or preferences (e.g. complementarities in household production or portfolio optimization). We find that half of the systematic sorting on education is due to low search frictions in marriage markets of the educational institutions. The other half is attributed to complementarities in household production, since income properties of the joint income process show no influence on partner selection.

Keywords: hedging; search frictions; positive assortative matching on education; complementarities in household production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2006-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published - published in: Journal of Human Resources, 2009, 44(4), 1066-86

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Related works:
Working Paper: Educational Homogamy: Preferences or Opportunities? (2006)
Working Paper: Educational Homogamy: Preferences or Opportunities? (2006)
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