IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/exe/wpaper/1904.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Marries Whom? The Role of Identity, Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills in Marriage

Author

Listed:
  • Annalisa Marini

    (University of Exeter)

Abstract

I estimate a structural model of marriage sorting on a representative sample of British individuals. The paper first investigates the importance of numerical skills in the selection of the partner and the role of identity for marriage matching on a British sample. The findings show that identity is among the most important attributes, together with education and physical characteristics, in marriage sorting. Cognitive skills are both direct and indirect determinants of marriage matching. Personality traits are also relevant in the choice of the partner: conscientiousness and openness to experience play, in addition to risk propensity, a direct and an indirect role, while agreeableness, extraversion and neuroticism matter only indirectly. Interesting findings, robust to both alternative specifications and a sensitivity analysis, and heterogeneous preferences between males and females emerge from the analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Annalisa Marini, 2019. "Who Marries Whom? The Role of Identity, Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills in Marriage," Discussion Papers 1904, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:exe:wpaper:1904
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://exetereconomics.github.io/RePEc/dpapers/DP1904.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lex Borghans & Bart H. H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 649-658, 04-05.
    2. Kleibergen, Frank & Paap, Richard, 2006. "Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 97-126, July.
    3. Alberto Bisin & Thierry Verdier, 2000. ""Beyond the Melting Pot": Cultural Transmission, Marriage, and the Evolution of Ethnic and Religious Traits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 955-988.
    4. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2008. "Is the Melting Pot Still Hot? Explaining the Resurgence of Immigrant Segregation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 478-497, August.
    5. Bisin, Alberto & Patacchini, Eleonora & Verdier, Thierry & Zenou, Yves, 2016. "Bend it like Beckham: Ethnic identity and integration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 146-164.
    6. Stutzer, Alois & Frey, Bruno S., 2006. "Does marriage make people happy, or do happy people get married?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 326-347, April.
    7. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    8. Pierre-André Chiappori & Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2012. "Fatter Attraction: Anthropometric and Socioeconomic Matching on the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(4), pages 659-695.
    9. Anke C. Zimmermann & Richard A. Easterlin, 2006. "Happily Ever After? Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Happiness in Germany," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 32(3), pages 511-528, September.
    10. James J. Heckman & Jora Stixrud & Sergio Urzua, 2006. "The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 411-482, July.
    11. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    12. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 11-26, Part II, .
    13. Dagsvik, John K, 1994. "Discrete and Continuous Choice, Max-Stable Processes, and Independence from Irrelevant Attributes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(5), pages 1179-1205, September.
    14. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 299-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Lex Borghans & Bart H.H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity," Working Papers 200903, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    16. Ljunge, Martin, 2014. "Trust issues: Evidence on the intergenerational trust transmission among children of immigrants," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 175-196.
    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. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2014. "Personality Traits and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(6), pages 1271-1319.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/361levbcs399s9oa154em6h9jl is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09mj4j5amb8 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Adda, Jérôme & Pinotti, Paolo & Tura, Giulia, 2020. "There's More to Marriage than Love: The Effect of Legal Status and Cultural Distance on Intermarriages and Separations," CEPR Discussion Papers 14432, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. John Douglas Skåtun, 2017. "Bargaining on your Spouse: Coasean and Non-Coasean Behaviour Within Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 263-278, June.
    6. Bisin, Alberto & Tura, Giulia, 2019. "Marriage, Fertility, and Cultural Integration in Italy," CEPR Discussion Papers 14179, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Alberto Bisin & Giulia Tura, 2019. "Marriage, Fertility, and Cultural Integration of Immigrants in Italy," Working Papers 2019-063, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    8. Pierre-André Chiappori & Bernard Salanié, 2016. "The Econometrics of Matching Models," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(3), pages 832-861, September.
    9. Guven, Cahit & Senik, Claudia & Stichnoth, Holger, 2012. "You can’t be happier than your wife. Happiness gaps and divorce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 110-130.
    10. McCann, Robert J. & Shi, Xianwen & Siow, Aloysius & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2012. "Becker Meets Ricardo: Multisector Matching with Social and Cognitive Skills," IZA Discussion Papers 6533, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2016. "Marriage Age Affects Educational Gender Inequality: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145492, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Coles, M & Francesconi, M, 2013. "Equilibrium Search and the Impact of Equal Opportunities for Women," Economics Discussion Papers 9010, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    13. James Banks & Iris Kesternich & James P. Smith, 2021. "International differences in interspousal health correlations," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1152-1177, May.
    14. Amavilah, Voxi Heinrich, 2018. "Endogenous constraints, coefficients of economic distance, and economic performance of African countries – An exploratory essay," MPRA Paper 90065, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Alberto Bisin & Thierry Verdier, 2010. "The Economics of Cultural Transmission and Socialization," Post-Print halshs-00754788, HAL.
    16. Gensowski, Miriam & Gørtz, Mette & Schurer, Stefanie, 2021. "Inequality in personality over the life cycle," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 46-77.
    17. Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2009. "I can't smile without you: Spousal correlation in life satisfaction," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 675-689, August.
    18. Javier G. Boncompte & Ricardo D. Paredes, 2020. "Human Capital Endowments and Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being in Chile," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 241-269, January.
    19. Elena Bardasi & Mark Taylor, 2008. "Marriage and Wages: A Test of the Specialization Hypothesis," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(299), pages 569-591, August.
    20. Pierre–André Chiappori & Natalia Radchenko & Bernard Salanié, 2018. "Divorce and the duality of marital payoff," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 833-858, September.
    21. Sinha, Shruti, 2018. "Identification in One-to-One Matching Models with Nonparametric Unobservables," TSE Working Papers 18-897, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    22. Raffaella Santolini, 2021. "To Divorce Or Not To Divorce: Is This A Property Tax Problem?," Working Papers 451, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marriage; Identity; Cognitive; Noncognitive Skills;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • C01 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General - - - Econometrics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:exe:wpaper:1904. 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: Sebastian Kripfganz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deexeuk.html .

    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.