Full Citation

Title: Making Yourself Attractive: Pre-Marital Investments and the Returns to Education in the Marriage Market

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2012

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: This paper explores how a rise in a gender’s scarcity may impact educational invest- ments using exogenous variation in the marriage market of second generation Americans in early 20th century. Theoretically, one may expect this to occur through two potential channels: a change in matching possibilities or in post-match bargaining. Empirically, I find that worse marriage market conditions spurs higher pre-marital investments: the ef- fect for males is significant (0.2 years of education for one standard deviation in the sex ratio) while for females, it is only observed in highly endogamous groups. When faced with an exogenously larger number of males per females, males’ marriages appear to be less stable and more likely to involve natives and more educated spouses while women are less likely to work and, for those in high endogamous groups, marry more immigrants.

Url: http://economia.uc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dt_422.pdf

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Lafortune, Jeanne

Series Title: Instituto de Economia Documento de Trabajo

Publication Number: 422

Institution: INSTITUTO DE ECONOMIA

Pages:

Publisher Location:

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Education, Family and Marriage

Countries: United States