Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP3388
Authors: Eric D. Gould; M. Daniele Paserman
Abstract: This Paper demonstrates that women search longer for their first or second husband in cities with higher male wage inequality, and analyses several explanations for this result. A causal link is established by showing that the results are robust to the inclusion of city fixed-effects and city-specific time trends, and by using inequality in the woman?s state of birth as a proxy for the local level of male inequality. Increasing male inequality explains about 30% of the marriage rate decline for women over the last few decades, and we show that this is not due to the effects of male inequality on female inequality, female labour supply, or decisions by women to re-locate, nor to the decisions of men in reaction to changes in their own wages. The evidence supports the idea that higher male inequality increases the option value for single women to search longer for a husband.
Keywords: inequality; marriage; search
JEL Codes: D31; J12; J31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Higher male wage inequality in cities (J31) | Higher probability of women remaining single (J12) |
| Higher male wage inequality in cities (J31) | Increased option value for women to delay marriage (J12) |
| Increased male inequality (J79) | Decline in marriage rates among women (J12) |
| Higher male wage inequality in cities (J31) | Men delay marriage (J12) |
| Men delay marriage (J12) | Conditioned on their own wages and ranks within the local wage distribution (J31) |