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Peer Effects in Young Adults' Marital Decisions

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  • Adamopoulou, Effrosyni

Abstract

This paper studies peer group effects on marital decisions. We use data from Waves I and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). This database contains detailed information on adolescents’ high school friends as well as their marital behavior later in life. We construct a balanced panel for the years 1995-2002 using the calendar of all past and current relationships of the respondents, which allows us to recover the marital status of each individual and of her friends at any given year. Hence, we are able to analyze how the marital transitions of individuals depend on the marital status of their friends. We use panel data, instrumental variables techniques, and exploit the timing of friendship formation to identify the effect of peers on marital decisions. Our results after controlling for various observable characteristics of individuals and their friends show that peer effects in marital decisions are significant. Robustness checks using former and placebo friends support our results, and indicate that actual peers do matter.

Suggested Citation

  • Adamopoulou, Effrosyni, 2012. "Peer Effects in Young Adults' Marital Decisions," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1228, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    • Handle: RePEc:cte:werepe:we1228
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    Cited by:

    1. Effrosyni Adamopoulou & Ezgi Kaya, 2018. "Young Adults Living with their Parents and the Influence of Peers," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(3), pages 689-713, June.
    2. Anderberg, Dan & Vickery, Alexander, 2021. "The role of own-group density and local social norms for ethnic marital sorting: Evidence from the UK," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Ismael Mourifié, 2019. "A marriage matching function with flexible spillover and substitution patterns," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(2), pages 421-461, March.
    4. Ismael Mourifie & Aloysius Siow, 2015. "Cohabitation versus marriage: Marriage matching with peer effects," Working Papers tecipa-531, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer effects;

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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