Educational Ambition, Marital Sorting, and Inequality

Frederik Almar (), Benjamin Friedrich (), Ana Reynoso (), Bastian Schulz () and Rune Majlund Vejlin ()
Additional contact information
Frederik Almar: Aarhus University
Benjamin Friedrich: Northwestern University
Ana Reynoso: University of Michigan
Bastian Schulz: Aarhus University
Rune Majlund Vejlin: Aarhus University

No 17814, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper revisits the link between education-based marriage market sorting and income inequality. Leveraging Danish administrative data, we develop a novel categorization of “ambition types” that is based on starting wages and wage growth trajectories associated with detailed educational programs. We find a substantial increase in assortative matching by educational ambition over time, and the marriage market explains more than 40% of increasing inequality since 1980. In contrast, sorting trends are flat with the commonly-used educational level categorization. We conclude that the mapping from education to types matters crucially for conclusions about how education-based marriage market sorting contributes to rising income inequality.

Keywords: inequality; marital sorting; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D31 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp17814.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17814

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().