IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-07o10035.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income Inequality and Marriage

Author

Listed:
  • Myeong Hwan Kim

    (State University of New York at New Paltz)

  • Soung Chan Lee

    (Plymouth State University)

  • Kwang Woo Park

    (Minnesota State University, Mankato)

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which changes in household formation exacerbated income inequality in the United States during the last two generations. Using a time-varying parameter model, the impact on how marriage decisions, changes in human capital, and fertility choices influence inequality are estimated. The estimation results show that marital sorting evolves over time and positively and increasingly affects the degree of income inequality and intergenerational human capital transmission induces path-dependent income distribution dynamics. This suggests that intrahousehold choices explain a substantial proportion of income distribution dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Myeong Hwan Kim & Soung Chan Lee & Kwang Woo Park, 2007. "Income Inequality and Marriage," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 15(20), pages 1-12.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-07o10035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2007/Volume15/EB-07O10035A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raquel Fernández & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, 2005. "Love and Money: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Household Sorting and Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(1), pages 273-344.
    2. Kremer, Michael & Chen, Daniel L, 2002. "Income Distribution Dynamics with Endogenous Fertility," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 227-258, September.
    3. Michael Kremer, 1997. "How Much does Sorting Increase Inequality?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 115-139.
    4. Raquel Fernández & Richard Rogerson, 2001. "Sorting and Long-Run Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1305-1341.
    5. Christine Schwartz & Robert Mare, 2005. "Trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(4), pages 621-646, November.
    6. Ozdural, Sanem, 1993. "Intergenerational mobility : A comparative study between Turkey and the United States," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 221-230.
    7. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    8. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R, 1989. "The Time-Varying-Parameter Model for Modeling Changing Conditional Variance: The Case of the Lucas Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 7(4), pages 433-440, October.
    9. Fernandez, Raquel & Rogerson, Richard, 1998. "Public Education and Income Distribution: A Dynamic Quantitative Evaluation of Education-Finance Reform," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 813-833, September.
    10. David Lam, 1988. "Marriage Markets and Assortative Mating with Household Public Goods: Theoretical Results and Empirical Implications," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 23(4), pages 462-487.
    11. Bjorklund, Anders & Jantti, Markus, 1997. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Sweden Compared to the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1009-1018, December.
    12. Dahan, Momi & Gaviria, Alejandro, 2001. "Sibling Correlations and Intergenerational Mobility in Latin America," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(3), pages 537-554, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:15:y:2007:i:20:p:1-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Raquel Fernández & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, 2005. "Love and Money: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Household Sorting and Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 273-344.
    3. Guell, Maia & Rodriguez Mora, Jose V. & Telmer, Chris, 2007. "Intergenerational mobility and the informative content of surnames," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19701, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Kerwin Charles & Erik Hurst & Alexandra Killewald, 2013. "Marital Sorting and Parental Wealth," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(1), pages 51-70, February.
    5. Florencia Torche, 2010. "Educational assortative mating and economic inequality: A comparative analysis of three Latin American countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 47(2), pages 481-502, May.
    6. Fernandez, Raquel, 2002. "Education, segregation and marital sorting: theory and an application to the UK," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 993-1022, June.
    7. Pasteau, Etienne & Zhu, Junyi, 2018. "Love and money with inheritance: Marital sorting by labor income and inherited wealth in the modern partnership," Discussion Papers 23/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    8. Raquel Fernández & Richard Rogerson, 2001. "Sorting and Long-Run Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(4), pages 1305-1341.
    9. Luc Arrondel & Nicolas Frémeaux, 2013. ""For richer, for poorer": savings preferences and choice of spouse," Working Papers halshs-00786245, HAL.
    10. de la Croix, David & Doepke, Matthias, 2004. "Public versus private education when differential fertility matters," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 607-629, April.
    11. Bernt Bratsberg & Simen Markussen & Oddbjørn Raaum & Knut Røed & Ole Røgeberg, 2023. "Trends in Assortative Mating and Offspring Outcomes," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(651), pages 928-950.
    12. Vera Tolstova, 2021. "Marital Sorting and Cross-Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Persistence," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp680, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    13. Edoardo Ciscato & Simon Weber, 2020. "The role of evolving marital preferences in growing income inequality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 307-347, January.
    14. Lasse Eika & Magne Mogstad & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2795-2835.
    15. Shoichi Sasaki, 2018. "Labor Market Inequality and Marital Segregation in East Asia," Discussion Papers 1822, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    16. Diego Restuccia & Carlos Urrutia, 2004. "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1354-1378, December.
    17. Robert D. Mare, 2016. "Educational Homogamy in Two Gilded Ages," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 663(1), pages 117-139, January.
    18. David Monaghan, 2017. "The Impact of Economic Inequality and Gender Parity on Educational Assortative Mating: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study," LIS Working papers 607, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    19. Pilar Gonalons-Pons & Christine R. Schwartz, 2017. "Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 985-1005, June.
    20. Greenwood, Jeremy & Guner, Nezih & Santos, Cezar & Kocharakov, Georgi, 2015. "Technology and the Changing Family: A Unified Model of Marriage, Divorce, Educational Attainment and Married Female Labor-Force," CEPR Discussion Papers 10434, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Diego Daruich & Julian Kozlowski, 2020. "Explaining Intergenerational Mobility: The Role of Fertility and Family Transfers," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 220-245, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-07o10035. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.