Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality

Jeremy Greenwood, Nezih Guner, Georgi Kocharkov and Cezar Santos

No 2014-03, Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz from Department of Economics, University of Konstanz

Abstract: Has there been an increase in positive assortative mating? Does assortative mating contribute to household income inequality? Data from the United States Census Bureau suggests there has been a rise in assortative mating. Additionally, assortative mating a¤ects household income inequality. In particular, if matching in 2005 between husbands and wives had been random, instead of the pattern observed in the data, then the Gini coe¢ cient would have fallen from the observed 0.43 to 0.34, so that income inequality would be smaller. Thus, assortative mating is important for income inequality. The high level of married female labor-force participation in 2005 is important for this result.

Keywords: Assortative mating; married female labor supply; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 J11 J12 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-02-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (254)

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Working Paper: Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality (2015)
Working Paper: Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality (2015)
Working Paper: Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality (2015)
Journal Article: Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality (2014)
Working Paper: Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality (2014)
Working Paper: Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality (2014)
Working Paper: Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality (2014)
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