Gender differences and the timing of first marriages

Javier Diaz-Jimenez and Eugenio Giolito ()
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Javier Díaz-Giménez ()

Economics Working Papers from Universidad Carlos III, Departamento de Economía

Abstract: In this article we provide a simple model of the marriage market where singles search for spouses. In our model economy men and women live for many years and they differ in their survival probabilities, in their fecundity, and in their earnings. We show that modelling the marriage decision in a very simple model economy is sufficient to account for much of the observed marriage behavior in the United States in the year 2000. We conclude that gender differences in fecundity are all important in accounting for marriage behavior, and that differences in earnings matter little. We also conclude that, even though they are in short supply, the market power of fecund women is not enough for them to demand compensation in all cases. And that studying the marriage decision without modelling explicitly the roles played by age and by fecundity, as has been typically done by the previous literature, makes little sense.

Keywords: Marriage; Search; Sex ratio (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Date: 2008-02
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:werepe:we080804

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