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Title: The Impacts of Sex Ratios on Marriage Markets in the United States

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2005

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Abstract: Sex ratios, the ratio between the number of males per female in a population, can affect decisions regarding marriage, marriage prospects and outcomes. Sex ratios are a good indicator of the availability of mates in a population and this play an important role when individuals are considering marriage. This paper uses the local marriage market sex ratios in the US (metropolitan areas) to study how the availability of individuals from the different sex affects decisions towards marriage and the selection of mates. The empirical results suggests that high sex ratios (more males than females) reduces the number of single females in a population, increases the number of single males and have a negative effect on the age differential between couples. Also, individual outcomes such as schooling and income level are much more related to individual and regional characteristics than to sex ratios. Sex ratios also appear to have little or no effect on the mating process, I observe that individuals tend to marry others with similar educational levels despite of the different availability of mates in a region.

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Authors: Queiroz, Bernardo Lanza

Conference Name: Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America

Publisher Location: Boston, MA

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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