Black-White Marital Matching: Race, Anthropometrics, and Socioeconomics

Pierre Chiappori, Sonia Oreffice and Climent Quintana-Domeque

No 6196, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We analyze the interaction of race with physical and socioeconomic characteristics in the U.S. marriage market, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1999 to 2009 for black, white, and inter-racial couples. We consider the anthropometric characteristics of both spouses, together with their wage and education, and estimate who inter-racially marries whom along these dimensions. Distinctive patterns arise by gender and race for inter-married individuals: the black women who inter-marry are the thinner and more educated in their group; instead, white women are the fatter and less educated; black or white men who inter-marry are poorer and thinner. While women in "mixed" couples find a spouse who is poorer but thinner than if they intra-married, black men match with a white woman who is more educated than if they intra-married, and a white man finds a thinner spouse in a black woman.

Keywords: wages; BMI; marriage market; interracial couples; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2011-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-lab and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - revised version published in: Journal of Demographic Economics, 2016, 82, 399-421.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Black-White Marital Matching: Race, Anthtopometrics and Socioeconomics (2016)
Journal Article: BLACK–WHITE MARITAL MATCHING: RACE, ANTHROPOMETRICS, AND SOCIOECONOMICS (2016)
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