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Marriage Choices of Movie Stars: Does Spouse's Education Matter?

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  • Gustaf Bruze

Abstract

Marital sorting on education is an important but poorly understood source of inequality. This paper analyzes a group of men and women who do not meet their spouses in school, are not sorted by education in the workplace, and whose earnings are not correlated with their years of education. Nevertheless, movie actors marry spouses with an education similar to their own. These findings suggest that male and female preferences alone induce considerable sorting on education in marriage and that men and women have very strong preferences for nonfinancial partner traits correlated with years of education.

Suggested Citation

  • Gustaf Bruze, 2011. "Marriage Choices of Movie Stars: Does Spouse's Education Matter?," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1-28.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/660108
    DOI: 10.1086/660108
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    1. Raquel Fernández & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, 2005. "Love and Money: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Household Sorting and Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(1), pages 273-344.
    2. Isaac Ehrlich & Jinyoung Kim, 2007. "The Evolution of Income and Fertility Inequalities over the Course of Economic Development: A Human Capital Perspective," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 137-174.
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    4. Ran Abramitzky & Adeline Delavande & Luis Vasconcelos, 2011. "Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 124-157, July.
    5. Michael Kremer, 1997. "How Much does Sorting Increase Inequality?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(1), pages 115-139.
    6. Helena Skyt Nielsen & Michael Svarer, 2009. "Educational Homogamy: How Much is Opportunities?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(4).
    7. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Maitreesh Ghatak & Jeanne Lafortune, 2013. "Marry for What? Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 33-72, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2014. "Personality Traits and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(6), pages 1271-1319.
    2. 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.
    3. Tampieri, A., 2022. "The effects of educational assortative matching on job and marital satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    4. Alena Bičáková & Štěpán Jurajda, 2017. "Gender composition of college graduates by field of study and early fertility," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 1323-1343, December.
    5. Gong, Yifan & Leung, Charles Ka Yui, 2020. "When education policy and housing policy interact: Can they correct for the externalities?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    6. Sonia Jaffe & Simon Weber, 2019. "The effect of meeting rates on matching outcomes," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(2), pages 363-378, March.
    7. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09mj4j5amb8 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Santiago Pereda-Fernández, 2021. "Copula-Based Random Effects Models for Clustered Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 575-588, March.
    9. Nguyen, My & Le, Kien, 2022. "Maternal education and son preference," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09mj4j5amb8 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Alena Bicakova & Stepan Jurajda, 2014. "The Quiet Revolution and the Family: Gender Composition of Tertiary Education and Early Fertility Patterns," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp504, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    12. 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).
    13. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2012. "Personality traits and the marriage market," SciencePo Working papers hal-01070393, HAL.
    14. Michèle Belot & Marco Francesconi, 2013. "Dating Preferences and Meeting Opportunities in Mate Choice Decisions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(2), pages 474-508.
    15. Alessandro Tampieri, 2016. "Over-education and assortative matching in partnerships: a theoretical analysis," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 312-328, June.
    16. Hani Mansour & Terra McKinnish, 2018. "Same-occupation spouses: preferences or search costs?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(4), pages 1005-1033, October.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/361levbcs399s9oa154em6h9jl is not listed on IDEAS
    18. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09mj4j5amb8 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Gustaf Bruze, 2015. "Male And Female Marriage Returns To Schooling," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 207-234, February.
    20. Margarita Chudnovskaya, 2019. "Trends in Childlessness Among Highly Educated Men in Sweden," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(5), pages 939-958, December.
    21. André Grow & Jan Van Bavel, 2015. "Assortative Mating and the Reversal of Gender Inequality in Education in Europe: An Agent-Based Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, June.
    22. Piracha, Matloob & Randazzo, Teresa & Vadean, Florin, 2013. "Remittances and Occupational Outcomes of the Household Members Left-Behind," IZA Discussion Papers 7582, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. Yang Hu & Yue Qian, 2019. "Educational and age assortative mating in China: The importance of marriage order," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(3), pages 53-82.
    24. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2014. "Personality traits and the marriage market," Post-Print hal-03470458, HAL.
    25. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2012. "Personality traits and the marriage market," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01070393, HAL.

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