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Partner Choice, Investment in Children, and the Marital College Premium

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre-André Chiappori

    (Columbia University)

  • Bernard Salanié

    (Columbia University)

  • Yoram Weiss

    (Tel Aviv University)

Abstract

We construct a model of household decision-making in which agents consume a private and a public good, interpreted as children's welfare. Children's utility depends on their human capital, which is produced from parental time and human capital. We first show that as returns to human capital increase, couples at the top of the income distribution should spend more time on children. This in turn should reinforce assortative matching, in a sense we precisely define. We then embed the model into a Transferable Utility matching framework with random preferences a la Choo and Siow (2006) which we estimate on US marriage data for individuals born between 1943 and 1972. We find that the preference for assortative matching by education has significantly increased for the white population, particularly for highly educated individuals; but not for blacks. Moreover, in line with theoretical predictions, we find that the "marital college-plus premium" has increased for women but not for men.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre-André Chiappori & Bernard Salanié & Yoram Weiss, 2016. "Partner Choice, Investment in Children, and the Marital College Premium," Working Papers 2016-027, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2016-027
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre-André Chiappori & Robert McCann & Lars Nesheim, 2010. "Hedonic price equilibria, stable matching, and optimal transport: equivalence, topology, and uniqueness," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 42(2), pages 317-354, February.
    2. 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.
    3. Daniela Del Boca & Christopher Flinn & Matthew Wiswall, 2016. "Transfers to Households with Children and Child Development," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(596), pages 136-183, October.
    4. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Cornes, Richard C, 1983. "Independence of Allocative Efficiency from Distribution in the Theory of Public Goods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(6), pages 1753-1765, November.
    5. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Georgi Kocharkov & Cezar Santos, 2014. "Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 348-353, May.
    6. Shannon Seitz, 2009. "Accounting for Racial Differences in Marriage and Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(3), pages 385-437, July.
    7. Browning,Martin & Chiappori,Pierre-André & Weiss,Yoram, 2014. "Economics of the Family," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521795395.
    8. Maristella Botticini & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Are There Increasing Returns in Marriage Markets?," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2006-050, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    9. Monfort, A & Rabemananjara, R, 1990. "From a VAR Model to a Structural Model, with an Application to the Wage-Price Spiral," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(3), pages 203-227, July-Sept.
    10. 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..
    11. 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, .
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    human capital; college premium; assortative matching; transferable utility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General

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