Full Citation
Title: Marriage Age Patterns: A Unifying Theory and Global Evidence
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2014
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Abstract: Age at firstmarriage systematically relates to personal income earned later in life. I propose a theory that explains the patterns and evolution of the gender-specific income-marriage age relationships over the last fifty years in the United States and around the world. Becker (1973) and Keeley (1977) argue that personal income and marriage age are negatively correlated for men and positively correlated for women. Higher wage men and lower wage women gain more from household specialization and are better marriage partners because men specialize in market activities and women in household. If men need time to demonstrate their wage earning abilities in market activities, Bergstromand Bagnoli (1993) identify a benefit of waiting to reveal abilities for more able men so that personal income and marriage age should be positively correlated for men and uncorrelated for women. However, both theories and their combination fail to explain the evidence over time satisfactorily, especially both genders inverse U relationship in the current American marriage market - those who marry in the late twenties earn the most and those who marry before or after earn less. I combine and extend upon these theories by focusing on the two key drivers - stochastic returns from human capital investment and differential fecundity that interferes females investment decision but not males. Declining importance of fecundity in marriage explains the changes.
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Authors: Zhang, Hanzhe
Publisher: University of Chicago
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Family and Marriage
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