A Search Model of Marriage with Differential Fecundity

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A Search Model of Marriage with Differential Fecundity

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Giolito, Eugenio P. () (University of Maryland and IZA Bonn)

Abstract

It is commonly observed that over time and across societies, women tend to marry older men. The traditional explanation for this phenomenon is that wages increase with age and hence older men are more attractive in the marriage market. This explanation, however, involves an implicit assumption about female specialization in home production - an assumption that does not completely hold, especially in modern times. This paper shows that a marriage market equilibrium where women marry earlier in life than men can be achieved without making any assumptions about the wage process or gender roles. The only driving force in this model is the asymmetry in fecundity horizons between men and women. When the model is calibrated with Census Data, the average age at first marriage and the pattern of the sex ratio of single men to single women over different age groups mimics the patterns observed in developed countries during the last decade (e.g. France, the U.S. and Sweden).

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 1082.

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Length: 58 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2004
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1082

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2004-03-28 (All new papers)

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

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Melvyn G. Coles & Marco Francesconi, 2007. "On the Emergence of Toyboys: Equilibrium Matching with Ageing and Uncertain Careers," IZA Discussion Papers 2612, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]

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