The her in inheritance: how marriage matching has always mattered, Quebec 1800-1970

Matthew Curtis

No 2022-38, Working Papers ECARES from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: When did marriage become strongly assortative? Is it a recent development, aconsequence of increased female employment and a cause of rising inequality? A longrun perspective is necessary to answer this question. This paper uses a uniquely suitabledatabase from Quebec 1800{1970 to provide such a perspective. First, it develops anovel method which reveals that marriage was highly assortative as far back as the earlynineteenth century. Next, it shows this matching depended on the individual humancapital of women, not just on family backgrounds. Finally, it shows that mothers hada causal impact on child outcomes independently from fathers. Thus, despite deeplyconservative gender norms, marriage matching

Keywords: Assortative mating; marriage matching; sorting; human captial; intergenerational mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J62 N31 N32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 72 p.
Date: 2022-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-evo, nep-his and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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