Skill Premia and Pre-Marital Investments in Marriage Markets

Aditya Kuvalekar

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: I study a decentralized marriage market with search frictions, costly pre-marital skill investments, and non-transferable utility. Despite a fully symmetric environment, asymmetric equilibria -- in which one gender systematically invests more in skills than the other -- can arise. The match payoffs are microfounded through a non-cooperative household game in which spouses allocate time between labor-market work and domestic production. An asymmetric equilibrium becomes available precisely as the high-skill wage rises. Further, the symmetric equilibria can be fragile while the asymmetric ones are not. Thus, rising skill premia may amplify rather than narrow gender gaps in skill acquisition.

Date: 2026-05, Revised 2026-06
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