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War and Marriage: Assortative Mating and the World War II GI Bill

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  • Matthew Larsen
  • T. McCarthy
  • Jeremy Moulton
  • Marianne Page
  • Ankur Patel

Abstract

World War II and its subsequent GI Bill have been widely credited with playing a transformative role in American society, but there have been few quantitative analyses of these historical events’ broad social effects. We exploit between-cohort variation in the probability of military service to investigate how WWII and the GI Bill altered the structure of marriage, and find that it had important spillover effects beyond its direct effect on men’s educational attainment. Our results suggest that the additional education received by returning veterans caused them to “sort” into wives with significantly higher levels of education. This suggests an important mechanism by which socioeconomic status may be passed on to the next generation. Copyright Population Association of America 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew Larsen & T. McCarthy & Jeremy Moulton & Marianne Page & Ankur Patel, 2015. "War and Marriage: Assortative Mating and the World War II GI Bill," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(5), pages 1431-1461, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:demogr:v:52:y:2015:i:5:p:1431-1461
    DOI: 10.1007/s13524-015-0426-x
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicola Barban & Elisabetta De Cao & Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2016. "Assortative Mating on Education: A Genetic Assessment," Working Papers 2016-034, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    2. Megan D. Thomas, 2017. "WWII GI Bill and its Effect on Low Education Levels: Did the World War II GI Bill have an Effect on High School Completion, Poverty, and Employment?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 12(4), pages 492-515, Fall.
    3. Barban, Nicola & De Cao, Elisabetta & Oreffice, Sonia & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2021. "The effect of education on spousal education: A genetic approach," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Campante, Filipe & Yanagizawa-Drott, David, 2015. "The Intergenerational Transmission of War," Working Paper Series rwp15-039, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    5. Ricks, Judith S., 2021. "Mortgage subsidies, homeownership, and marriage: Effects of the VA loan program," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. Marianne P. Bitler & Lucie Schmidt, 2012. "Birth Rates and the Vietnam Draft," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 566-569, May.
    7. Quincy, Sarah, 2022. "Income shocks and housing spillovers: Evidence from the World War I Veterans’ Bonus," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    8. Tan, Hui Ren, 2020. "Did military service during World War I affect the economic status of American veterans?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    9. Jongkwan Lee, 2023. "The impact of a local human capital shock: evidence from World War II veterans," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1765-1798, July.

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