IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v42y2007i3p582-595.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Working Late: Do Workplace Sex Ratios Affect Partnership Formation and Dissolution?

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Svarer

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the association between workplace sex ratios and partnership formation and dissolution. I find that the risk of dissolution increases with the fraction of coworkers of the opposite sex at both the female and male workplace. On the other hand, workplace sex ratios are not important for the overall transition rate from singlehood to partnership. The results suggest that the workplace constitutes a more important marriage market segment for individuals who are already in a partnership, presumably due to higher search cost for (alternative) partners in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Svarer, 2007. "Working Late: Do Workplace Sex Ratios Affect Partnership Formation and Dissolution?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:jhriss:v:42:y:2007:i3:p582-595
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jhr.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/XLII/3/582
    Download Restriction: A subscripton is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yu Xie & James Raymo & Kimberl Goyette & Arland Thornton, 2003. "Economic potential and entry into marriage and cohabitation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(2), pages 351-367, May.
    2. Jensen, Peter & Rosholm, Michael & Svarer, Michael, 2003. "The response of youth unemployment to benefits, incentives, and sanctions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 301-316, June.
    3. Josh Angrist, 2002. "How Do Sex Ratios Affect Marriage and Labor Markets? Evidence from America's Second Generation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 997-1038.
    4. Terra G. Mckinnish, 2004. "Occupation, Sex-Integration, and Divorce," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 322-325, May.
    5. Keeley, Michael C, 1977. "The Economics of Family Formation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 15(2), pages 238-250, April.
    6. Arnstein Aassve & Simon Burgess & Andrew Chesher & Carol Propper, 2002. "Transitions from home to marriage of young Americans," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(1), pages 1-23.
    7. Gautier, Pieter A. & Svarer, Michael & Teulings, Coen, 2005. "Marriage and the City," IZA Discussion Papers 1491, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    9. van den Berg, Gerard J, 1994. "The Effects of Changes of the Job Offer Arrival Rate on the Duration of Unemployment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(3), pages 478-498, July.
    10. Nakosteen, Robert A & Zimmer, Michael A, 2001. "Spouse Selection and Earnings: Evidence of Marital Sorting," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 201-213, April.
    11. Becker, Gary S & Landes, Elisabeth M & Michael, Robert T, 1977. "An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1141-1187, December.
    12. Michael J. Brien, 1997. "Racial Differences in Marriage and the Role of Marriage Markets," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(4), pages 741-778.
    13. Michael Svarer & Mette Verner, 2008. "Do children stabilize relationships in Denmark?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(2), pages 395-417, April.
    14. 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..
    15. Michael Svarer, 2004. "Is Your Love in Vain? Another Look at Premarital Cohabitation and Divorce," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    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. Wolfgang Frimmel & Martin Halla & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2016. "How Does Parental Divorce Affect Children's Long-term Outcomes?," Working Papers 2016-13, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    2. Michael Svarer, 2011. "Crime and partnerships," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 307-325, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Bicakova, Alena & Jurajda, Štepán, 2016. "Field-of-Study Homogamy," IZA Discussion Papers 9844, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. 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.
    6. Kuroki, Masanori, 2013. "Opposite-sex coworkers and marital infidelity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 71-73.
    7. Rune V. Lesner, 2018. "The long-term effect of childhood poverty," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 969-1004, July.
    8. Diederik Boertien & Juho Härkönen, 2018. "Why does women’s education stabilize marriages? The role of marital attraction and barriers to divorce," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 38(41), pages 1241-1276.
    9. Helena Skyt Nielsen & Michael Svarer, 2009. "Educational Homogamy: How Much is Opportunities?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(4).
    10. Kieron James Barclay, 2013. "Sex ratios at sexual maturity and longevity," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(31), pages 837-864.
    11. 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.
    12. Holm, Mathilde Lund & Fallesen, Peter & Heinesen, Eskil, 2023. "The effects of parental union dissolution on children’s test scores," SocArXiv p2qgk, Center for Open Science.
    13. Scott Drewianka & Martin E. Meder, 2020. "Simultaneity and selection in financial hardship and divorce," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 1245-1265, December.
    14. Mansour, Hani & McKinnish, Terra, 2014. "Same-Occupation Spouses: Preferences and Search Costs," IZA Discussion Papers 8370, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Henry R. Hyatt, 2015. "Co-Working Couples and the Similar Jobs of Dual-Earner Households," Working Papers 15-23, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    16. Henry R. Hyatt, 2015. "Co-Working Couples and the Similar Jobs of Dual-Earner Households," Working Papers 15-23r, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    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. Nielsen, Helena Skyt & Svarer, Michael, 2006. "Educational Homogamy: Preferences or Opportunities?," IZA Discussion Papers 2271, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Gonzalez, Libertad, 2007. "The effect of benefits on single motherhood in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 393-412, June.
    3. Libertad González Luna, 2005. "The determinants of the prevalence of single mothers: A cross-country analysis," Economics Working Papers 876, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    4. Michael Svarer, 2011. "Crime and partnerships," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 307-325, September.
    5. Peter Fallesen & Richard Breen, 2016. "Temporary Life Changes and the Timing of Divorce," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(5), pages 1377-1398, October.
    6. Wong, Linda, 2003. "An Empirical Study of Darwin's Theory of Mate Choice," Working Papers 187, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    7. David S. Loughran, 2000. "Does Variance Matter? The Effect of Rising Male Inequality on Female Age at First Marriage," Working Papers 00-12, RAND Corporation.
    8. Michelle Sheran Sylvester, 2007. "The Career and Family Choices of Women: A Dynamic Analysis of Labor Force Participation, Schooling, Marriage and Fertility Decisions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(3), pages 367-399, July.
    9. Miriam Marcén & Marina Morales, 2019. "Live together: does culture matter?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 671-713, June.
    10. Martin Halla & Johann Scharler, 2012. "Marriage, Divorce, and Interstate Risk Sharing," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(1), pages 55-78, March.
    11. Wolfgang Frimmel & Martin Halla & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2016. "How Does Parental Divorce Affect Children's Long-term Outcomes?," Working Papers 2016-13, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    12. Vaillant, Nicolas G. & Harrant, Valérie, 2008. "Determinants of the likelihood of finding the right partner in an arranged marriage: Evidence from a French matchmaking agency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 657-671, April.
    13. Ragui Assaad & Caroline Krafft, 2014. "The Economics of Marriage in North Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-067, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Yao, Yuxin, 2017. "Essays on economics of language and family economics," Other publications TiSEM 0093bc8e-e869-4f87-8ff8-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Arnstein Aassve & Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Matt Dickson, 2006. "Employment, family union and childbearing decisions in Great Britain," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 169(4), pages 781-804, October.
    16. Pieter A. Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen N. Teulings, 2007. "Sin City?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-021/3, Tinbergen Institute.
      • Pieter A. Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen N. Teulings, 2007. "Sin City?," Economics Working Papers 2007-01, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
      • Teulings, Coen & Gautier, Pieter & Svarer, Michael, 2007. "Sin City?," CEPR Discussion Papers 6170, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
      • Gautier, Pieter A. & Svarer, Michael & Teulings, Coen, 2007. "Sin City?," IZA Discussion Papers 2632, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
      • Pieter A. Gautier & Michael Svarer & Coen N. Teulings, 2007. "Sin City?," CAM Working Papers 2007-01, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. Centre for Applied Microeconometrics.
    17. Shelly Lundberg, 2012. "Personality and marital surplus," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.
    18. Ho-Po Crystal Wong, 2014. "The Effects of Endogamous Marriage on Family Outcomes: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Immigrant Flows During 1900-1930 in the United States," Working Papers 14-31, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    19. 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.
    20. Dirk Bethmann & Robert Rudolf, 2018. "Happily ever after? Intrahousehold bargaining and the distribution of utility within marriage," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 347-376, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    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:uwp:jhriss:v:42:y:2007:i3:p582-595. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://jhr.uwpress.org/ .

    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.