IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/reveho/v3y2005i2p197-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Relationship Between Wife’s Education and Husband’s Earnings: Evidence from 1960 to 2000

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa Jepsen

Abstract

Previous research finds a positive relationship between a wife’s education and her husband’s earnings using data from the 1960s. Earlier theories suggest that benefits accrue from informational sharing between partners in a marriage. This paper tests the hypothesis that a wife’s education is positively associated with her husband’s earnings, using data from the 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses. Between 1960 and 2000, the educational attainment and labor-force participation of married women has increased dramatically. As women have embarked upon their own careers, has their education continued to be positively associated with their husbands’ earnings? Yes. The coefficient of the wife’s education remains positive and significant for all the years under study. The size of the coefficient decreases, however, from 1960 to 2000. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Jepsen, 2005. "The Relationship Between Wife’s Education and Husband’s Earnings: Evidence from 1960 to 2000," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 197-214, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:3:y:2005:i:2:p:197-214
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-005-0710-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11150-005-0710-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11150-005-0710-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Lam & Robert F. Schoeni, 1994. "Family Ties and Labor Markets in the United States and Brazil," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(4), pages 1235-1258.
    2. Benham, Lee, 1974. "Benefits of Women's Education within Marriage," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 57-71, Part II, .
    3. Claudia Goldin, 1992. "The Meaning of College in the Lives of American Women: The Past One-Hundred Years," NBER Working Papers 4099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Introduction to "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings"," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 1-4, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Neuman, Shoshana & Ziderman, Adrian, 1992. "Benefits of Women's Education within Marriage: Results for Israel in a Dual Labor Market Context," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 413-424, January.
    6. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    7. Lee Benham, 1974. "Benefits of Women's Education within Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Marriage, Family, Human Capital, and Fertility, pages 57-75, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Theodore W. Schultz, 1974. "Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number schu74-1, October.
    9. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1, October.
    12. Scully, Gerald W, 1979. "Mullahs, Muslims, and Marital Sorting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 1139-1143, October.
    13. Lee Benham, 1974. "Benefits of Women's Education within Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 375-394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eiji Yamamura & Yukichi Mano, 2012. "An Investigation into the Positive Effect of an Educated Wife on Her Husband’s Earnings: The Case of Japan in the Period between 2000 and 2003," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 18(4), pages 409-416, November.
    2. Roberto Bonilla & Alberto Trejos, 2021. "Marriage and employment participation with wage bargaining in search equilibrium," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(4), pages 517-533, September.
    3. Kanbur, Ravi & Fleurbaey, Marc & Viney, Brody, 2020. "Social Externalities and Economic Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 15179, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/45je9bvs5880japj06cptntfoa is not listed on IDEAS
    5. , Stone Center & Yonzan, Nishant, 2020. "Assortative Mating and Labor Income Inequality: Evidence from Fifty Years of Coupling in the U.S," SocArXiv 4whvs, Center for Open Science.
    6. Martin Dribe & Paul Nystedt, 2013. "Educational Homogamy and Gender-Specific Earnings: Sweden, 1990–2009," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(4), pages 1197-1216, August.
    7. Daniel Kemptner & Jan Marcus, 2013. "Spillover effects of maternal education on child’s health and health behavior," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 29-52, March.
    8. Choi, Hyung-Jai & Joesch, Jutta M. & Lundberg, Shelly, 2008. "Sons, daughters, wives, and the labour market outcomes of West German men," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 795-811, October.
    9. Sanjaya DeSilva & Mohammed Mehrab Bin Bakhtiar, 2011. "Women, Schooling, and Marriage in Rural Philippines," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_701, Levy Economics Institute.
    10. Eiji Yamamura, 2014. "The effect of young children on their parents’ anime-viewing habits: evidence from Japanese microdata," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 38(4), pages 331-349, November.
    11. Martin Dribe & Jan Van Bavel & Cameron Campbell, 2012. "Social mobility and demographic behaviour: Long term perspectives," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 26(8), pages 173-190.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/45je9bvs5880japj06cptntfoa is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Yukichi Mano & Eiji Yamamura, 2013. "Influence of a Wife's Working Status on Her Husband's Accumulation of Human Capital," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 323-339, December.
    14. Yamamura, Eiji, 2013. "Externality of young children on parents’ watching of anime: Evidence from Japanese micro data," MPRA Paper 46878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Arif Mamun, 2012. "Cohabitation Premium in Men’s Earnings: Testing the Joint Human Capital Hypothesis," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 53-68, March.
    16. Dupuy, Arnaud & Galichon, Alfred & Sun, Yifei, 2016. "Estimating Matching Affinity Matrix under Low-Rank Constraints," IZA Discussion Papers 10449, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Susan L. Averett & Cynthia Bansak & Julie K. Smith, 2021. "Behind Every High Earning Man is a Conscientious Woman: The Impact of Spousal Personality on Earnings and Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 29-46, March.
    18. Dhamija, Gaurav & Roychowdhury, Punarjit, 2018. "The impact of women's age at marriage on own and spousal labor market outcomes in India: causation or selection?," MPRA Paper 86686, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Chong Huang & Hongbin Li & Pak Wai Liu & Junsen Zhang, 2009. "Why Does Spousal Education Matter for Earnings? Assortative Mating and Cross-Productivity," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(4), pages 633-652, October.
    2. Eiji Yamamura & Yukichi Mano, 2012. "An Investigation into the Positive Effect of an Educated Wife on Her Husband’s Earnings: The Case of Japan in the Period between 2000 and 2003," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 18(4), pages 409-416, November.
    3. Åström, Johanna, 2011. "The Effects of Spousal Education on Individual Earnings – A Study of Married Swedish Couples," HUI Working Papers 32, HUI Research.
    4. Nicholas A. Jolly, 2019. "Female Earnings and the Returns to Spousal Education Over Time," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 691-709, December.
    5. Jeroen Smits, 2001. "Career Migration, Self-selection and the Earnings of Married Men and Women in the Netherlands, 1981-93," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(3), pages 541-562, March.
    6. Yukichi Mano & Eiji Yamamura, 2013. "Influence of a Wife's Working Status on Her Husband's Accumulation of Human Capital," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 323-339, December.
    7. Francesconi, Marco & Brynin, Malcolm, 2002. "The material returns to partnership: the effects of educational matching on labour market outcomes and gender equality," ISER Working Paper Series 2002-23, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    8. Mano, Yukichi & Yamamura, Eiji, 2011. "Human Capital Accumulation through Interaction between a Married Couple: Comparison between a Housewife and a Working Wife," MPRA Paper 28936, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Reuben GRonau, 1981. "Wives' Labor Force Participation, Wage Differentials and Family Income Inequality: The Israeli Experience," NBER Working Papers 0668, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Chong Huang & Hongbin Li & Pak Wai Liu & Junsen Zhang, 2006. "Why Does Spousal Education Matter for Earnings? Assortative Mating or Cross-productivity," Discussion Papers 00020, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics.
    11. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2012. "Canonical Correlation and Assortative Matching: a remark," Working Papers 2012/40, Maastricht School of Management.
    12. Emanuela di Gropello, 2006. "Meeting the Challenges of Secondary Education in Latin America and East Asia : Improving Efficiency and Resource Mobilization," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7173, April.
    13. Peydró, José-Luis & Jasova, Martina & Mendicino, Caterina & Panetti, Ettore & Supera, Dominik, 2021. "Monetary Policy, Labor Income Redistribution and the Credit Channel: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee and Credit Registe," CEPR Discussion Papers 16549, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Carstensen Kai & Hartmann Susanne & Gundlach Erich, 2009. "The Augmented Solow Model with Mincerian Schooling and Externalities," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 10(4), pages 448-463, December.
    15. Harmon, Colm & Hogan, Vincent & Walker, Ian, 2003. "Dispersion in the economic return to schooling," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 205-214, April.
    16. James J. Heckman, 2015. "Introduction to A Theory of the Allocation of Time by Gary Becker," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(583), pages 403-409, March.
    17. Francisco Queiró, 2022. "Entrepreneurial Human Capital and Firm Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(4), pages 2061-2100.
    18. Hector Espinoza & Stefan Speckesser, 2019. "A Comparison of Earnings Related to Higher Level Vocational/Technical and Academic Education," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 502, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    19. Philip Trostel & Ian Walker, 2006. "Education and Work," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 377-399.
    20. Theodore Koutmeridis, 2013. "The Market for "Rough Diamonds": Information, Finance and Wage Inequality," CDMA Working Paper Series 201307, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, revised 14 Oct 2013.

    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:kap:reveho:v:3:y:2005:i:2:p:197-214. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.