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Fertility Shocks and Equilibrium Marriage-Rate Dynamics

Author

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  • John Knowles

    (Simon Fraser University)

  • Guillaume Vandenbroucke

    (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)

Abstract

Prolonged disruptions of the matching process can distort the apparent effect of the singles sex-ratio on marriage-market prospects. Contrary to the usual matching model predictions, female marriage probabilities were 50% higher in France in the years after World War 1, despite a large drop in the sex ratio. We develop a model of marital matching in which composition effects in the singles pool affect post-disruption matching rates. When calibrated to French data from World War 1, this mechanism explains 2/3 of the post-war rise in female marriage probabilities as the result of better composition of the pool of single men. We conclude that endogeneity issues make the sex ratio a potentially unreliable indicator of female marriage prospects.

Suggested Citation

  • John Knowles & Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2018. "Fertility Shocks and Equilibrium Marriage-Rate Dynamics," Discussion Papers dp18-04, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    • Handle: RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp18-04
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Fertility Shocks and Equilibrium Marriage-Rate Dynamics: Lessons from World War 1 in France
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2015-04-20 08:58:36

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    Cited by:

    1. Jörn Boehnke & Victor Gay, 2022. "The Missing Men: World War I and Female Labor Force Participation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(4), pages 1209-1241.
    2. Xinyu Fan & Lingwei Wu, 2023. "The Shaping Of A Gender Norm: Marriage, Labor, And Foot‐Binding In Historical China," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1819-1850, November.
    3. John Kennes & John Knowles, 2024. "Unmarried Births: Accounting and Equilibrium Analysis"," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 52, pages 84-109, April.
    4. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Karen A. Kopecky, 2019. "The Wife's Protector: A Quantitative Theory Linking Contraceptive Technology with the Decline in Marriage," Working Papers wp2019_1912, CEMFI.
    5. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer & Schechter, Laura & Valencia Caicedo, Felipe & Jessica Zhu, S., 2022. "Country of Women? Repercussions of the Triple Alliance War in Paraguay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 131-167.
    6. Nezih Guner & Christopher Rauh & Elizabeth Caucutt, 2017. "Is Marriage for White People? Incarceration and the Racial Marriage Divide," 2017 Meeting Papers 779, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Family Economics; Household Formation; Marriage; Fertility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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