IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v107y2017i8p2109-67.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre-André Chiappori
  • Bernard Salanié
  • Yoram Weiss

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 depends on the time their parents spend with them and on the parents' human capital. We first show that as returns to human capital increase, couples at the top of the income distribution should spend more time with their children. This in turn should reinforce assortative matching, in a sense that 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 using US marriage data for individuals born between 1943 and 1972. We find that the preference for partners of the same education has significantly increased for white individuals, particularly for the highly educated. We find no evidence of such an increase for black individuals. 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, 2017. "Partner Choice, Investment in Children, and the Marital College Premium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2109-2167, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:8:p:2109-67
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150154
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20150154
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5019
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=0Gj1gJ5XK7AJHk1dTuRX5TeqXbSJ-JqS
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Browning,Martin & Chiappori,Pierre-André & Weiss,Yoram, 2014. "Economics of the Family," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521795395.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," NBER Chapters, in: Marriage, Family, Human Capital, and Fertility, pages 11-26, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Gary S. Becker & William H. J. Hubbard & Kevin M. Murphy, 2010. "The Market for College Graduates and the Worldwide Boom in Higher Education of Women," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 229-233, May.
    11. 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.
    12. 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..
    13. 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.
    14. Eugene Choo & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Estimating a marriage matching model with spillover effects," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 43(3), pages 463-490, August.
    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. Chiappori, Pierre-André & Salanié, Bernard & Weiss, Yoram, 2015. "Partner Choice and the Marital College Premium: Analyzing Marital Patterns Over Several Decades," CEPR Discussion Papers 10403, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. 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.
    3. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Khushboo Surana & Frederic Vermeulen, 2020. "Marital Matching, Economies of Scale, and Intrahousehold Allocations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 823-837, October.
    4. Nie, Haifeng & Xing, Chunbing, 2019. "Education expansion, assortative marriage, and income inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 37-51.
    5. Hanzhe Zhang, 2021. "An Investment-and-Marriage Model with Differential Fecundity: On the College Gender Gap," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(5), pages 1464-1486.
    6. Sasiwimon Warunsiri PAWEENAWAT & Lusi LIAO, 2023. "Educational assortative mating and income inequality in Thailand," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 283-298, June.
    7. Sinha, Shruti, 2018. "Identification in One-to-One Matching Models with Nonparametric Unobservables," TSE Working Papers 18-897, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    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. Eugene Choo & Shannon Seitz & Aloysius Siow, 2008. "The Collective Marriage Matching Model: Identification, Estimation and Testing," Working Papers tecipa-340, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    10. Alfred Galichon & Bernard Salanié, 2022. "Cupid’s Invisible Hand: Social Surplus and Identification in Matching Models [An Empirical Model of the Medical Match]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(5), pages 2600-2629.
    11. Ugo Bolletta & Luca Paolo Merlino, 2022. "Marriage Through Friends," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 1046-1066, December.
    12. 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).
    13. Ling Zhang & Xiaodong Tan, 2021. "Educational Assortative Mating and Health: A Study in Chinese Internal Migrants," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-14, February.
    14. Espinosa, Hector & Guzman, Ivan, 2018. "Mercado Matrimonial Dominicano: Impacto del Nivel de Educación en el Proceso de Selección de Parejas y su Vinculación con el Mercado Laboral [Marriage Market in the Dominican Republic: Impact of Ed," MPRA Paper 92112, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Jurajda, Å tÄ›pán & BiÄ Ã¡ková, Alena, 2016. "Field-of-Study Homogamy," CEPR Discussion Papers 11177, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Matthew Gnagey & Therese Grijalva & Rong Rong, 2020. "Spousal influence and assortative mating on time preferences: a field experiment in the USA," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 461-512, June.
    17. Alicia H. Munnell & Geoffrey Sanzenbacher & Alice Zulkarnain, 2020. "What Factors Explain the Decline in Widowed Women’s Poverty?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(5), pages 1881-1902, October.
    18. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen & Selma Walther, 2021. "Where did it go wrong? Marriage and divorce in Malawi," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 505-545, May.
    19. Aloysius Siow, 2008. "How does the marriage market clear? An empirical framework," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(4), pages 1121-1155, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:8:p:2109-67. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.