Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive
Business IT + Informatics
Construction + Real Estate
Electrical Engineering + Electronics
Energy + Sustainability
Insurance + Risk
Finance + Banking
Management + Leadership
Marketing + Sales
Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Start single access now
Request access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Demography

Hint

Swipe to navigate through the articles of this issue

Published in: Demography 3/2017

28-04-2017

Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?

Authors: Pilar Gonalons-Pons, Christine R. Schwartz

Published in: Demography | Issue 3/2017

Log in

Abstract

The growing economic resemblance of spouses has contributed to rising inequality by increasing the number of couples in which there are two high- or two low-earning partners. The dominant explanation for this trend is increased assortative mating. Previous research has primarily relied on cross-sectional data and thus has been unable to disentangle changes in assortative mating from changes in the division of spouses’ paid labor—a potentially key mechanism given the dramatic rise in wives’ labor supply. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to decompose the increase in the correlation between spouses’ earnings and its contribution to inequality between 1970 and 2013 into parts due to (a) changes in assortative mating, and (b) changes in the division of paid labor. Contrary to what has often been assumed, the rise of economic homogamy and its contribution to inequality is largely attributable to changes in the division of paid labor rather than changes in sorting on earnings or earnings potential. Our findings indicate that the rise of economic homogamy cannot be explained by hypotheses centered on meeting and matching opportunities, and they show where in this process inequality is generated and where it is not.
previous article The Marriage Wealth Premium Revisited: Gender Disparities and Within-Individual Changes in Personal Wealth in Germany
next article New Evidence Against a Causal Marriage Wage Premium

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
We do not use the 1950 census because only one person in the household was asked about their earnings, and thus spouses’ earnings correlations cannot be calculated.
 
2
Defining sorting as the association between spouses’ FTFY earnings potential as predicted by characteristics in a given year assumes perfect foresight of changes that affect future earnings, such as changes in occupation or educational attainment. To the extent that individuals do not foresee these changes, we will overestimate the contribution of sorting on earnings potential. Sensitivity tests show that estimating predicted earnings based only on characteristics at the time of marriage yields results very similar to those presented here.
 
3
Because the correlation between spouses’ earnings has been stable since approximately 1990 but inequality has risen, estimates of the contribution of economic homogamy to inequality are larger in earlier periods.
 
4
Supplementary analyses suggest that the correlation between spouses’ earnings potential did not increase because the correlation between spouses’ years of schooling declined over this period in the PSID. The declining correlation between spouses’ years of schooling is inconsistent with many assortative mating studies, which have reported an increase in educational homogamy (see Schwartz 2013 for a review). However, the correlation coefficient is affected by changes in the marginal distributions of spouses’ education. Log-linear models controlling for shifts in the marginal distributions of education using the PSID produce increases in educational homogamy similar to those estimated by Schwartz and Mare (2005). It is debatable whether the best way to measure the effects of educational assortative mating on earnings homogamy and inequality is to control for the marginal distributions (Breen and Salazar 2011). However, resolving this issue is beyond the scope of this article.
 
Literature
Bailey, M. J. (2006). More power to the pill: The impact of contraceptive freedom on women's life cycle labor supply. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121, 289–320.
Becker, G. S. (1974). A theory of marriage. In T. W. Schultz (Ed.), Economics of the family: Marriage, children, and human capital (pp. 299–344). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press (for the National Bureau of Economic Research).
Blackburn, M. L., & Bloom, D. E. (1995). Changes in the structure of family income inequality in the United States and other industrial nations during the 1980s. In S. W. Polacheck (Ed.), Research in labor economics (pp. 141–170). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Blair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among women executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Blau, F. D., Brummund, P., & Liu, A. Y.-H. (2013). Trends in occupational segregation by gender 1970–2009: Adjusting for the impact of changes in the occupational coding system. Demography, 50, 471–492. CrossRef
Blossfeld, H.-P. (2009). Educational assortative marriage in comparative perspective. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 513–530. CrossRef
Blossfeld, H.-P., & Timm, A. (Eds.) (2003). Who marries whom? Educational systems as marriage markets in modern societies. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
Breen, R., & Andersen, S. H. (2012). Educational assortative mating and income inequality in Denmark. Demography, 49, 867–887. CrossRef
Breen, R., & Salazar, L. (2010). Has increased women’s educational attainment led to greater earnings inequality in the United Kingdom? A multivariate decomposition analysis. European Sociological Review, 26, 143–157. CrossRef
Breen, R., & Salazar, L. (2011). Educational assortative mating and earnings inequality in the United States. American Journal of Sociology, 117, 808–843. CrossRef
Burkhauser, R. V., Butler, J. S., Feng, S., & Houtenville, A. J. (2004). Long term trends in earnings inequality: What the CPS can tell us. Economics Letters, 82, 295–299. CrossRef
Buss, D. M., Shackelford, T. K., Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Larsen, R. J. (2001). A half century of mate preferences: The cultural evolution of values. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 491–503. CrossRef
Cancian, M., Danziger, S., & Gottschalk, P. (1993). Working wives and family income inequality among married couples. In S. Danziger & P. Gottschalk (Eds.), Uneven tides: Rising inequality in America (pp. 195–221). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
Cancian, M., & Reed, D. (1998). Assessing the effects of wives’ earnings on family income inequality. Review of Economics and Statistics, 80, 73–79. CrossRef
Cancian, M., & Reed, D. (1999). The impact of wives’ earnings on income inequality: Issues and estimates. Demography, 36, 173–184. CrossRef
Cherlin, A. J. (2004). The deinstitutionalization of American marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 848–861. CrossRef
Cotter, D. A., Hermsen, J. M., & Vanneman, R. (2001). Women’s work and working women: The demand for female labor. Gender & Society, 15, 429–452.
Eika, L., Mogstad, M., & Zafar, B. (2014). Educational assortative mating and household income inequality (NBER Working Paper No. 2027). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Elder, G. H. (1999). Children of the Great Depression: Social change in life experience. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
England, P. (2010). The gender revolution: Uneven and stalled. Gender & Society, 24, 149–166. CrossRef
Fernández, R., Guner, N., & Knowles, J. (2005). Love and money: A theoretical and empirical analysis of household sorting and inequality. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120, 273–344.
Fernández, R., & Rogerson, R. (2001). Sorting and long-run inequality. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116, 1305–1341.
Gerson, K. (1985). Hard choices: How women decide about work, career, and motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gerson, K. (2010). The unfinished revolution: How a new generation is reshaping family, work, and gender in America. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Goldin, C. (2006). The quiet revolution that transformed women’s employment, education, and family. American Economic Review, 96, 1–21. CrossRef
Goldin, C. (2014). A grand gender convergence: Its last chapter. American Economic Review, 104, 1091–1119. CrossRef
Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2002). The power of the pill: Oral contraceptives and women’s career and marriage decisions. Journal of Political Economy, 110, 730–770. CrossRef
Goldscheider, F., Bernhardt, E., & Lappegård, T. (2015). The gender revolution: A framework for understanding changing family and demographic behavior. Population and Development Review, 41, 207–239. CrossRef
Greenwood, J., Guner, N., Kocharkov, G., & Santos, C. (2014). Marry your like: Assortative mating and income inequality. American Economic Review, 104, 348–353. CrossRef
Harmenberg, K. (2014). A note: The effect of assortative mating on income inequality. Unpublished manuscript, Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Hryshko, D., Juhn, C., & McCue, K. (2014). Trends in earnings inequality and earnings instability among US couples: How important is assortative matching? (IZA Discussion Paper No. 8729). Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor.
Hyslop, D. R. (2001). Rising U.S. earnings inequality and family labor supply: The covariance structure of intrafamily earnings. American Economic Review, 91, 755–777. CrossRef
Kalmijn, M. (1998). Intermarriage and homogamy: Causes, patterns, trends. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 395–421. CrossRef
Kitagawa, E. M. (1955). Components of a difference between two rates. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 50, 1168–1194.
Kremer, M. (1997). How much does sorting increase inequality? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112, 115–139. CrossRef
McCall, L., & Percheski, C. (2010). Income inequality: New trends and research directions. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 329–347. CrossRef
McLanahan, S., & Percheski, C. (2008). Family structure and the reproduction of inequalities. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 257–276. CrossRef
Mulligan, C. B., & Rubinstein, Y. (2008). Selection, investment, and women’s relative wages over time. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123, 1061–1110. CrossRef
Musick, K., Gonalons-Pons, P., Schwartz, C., & Griffin, L. (2016, August). Trends in couples’ work patterns after childbirth: Evidence from the SIPP and administrative earnings. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Seattle, WA.
Oppenheimer, V. K. (1988). A theory of marriage timing. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 563–591. CrossRef
Oppenheimer, V. K. (1994). Women’s rising employment and the future of the family in industrial societies. Population and Development Review, 20, 293–342. CrossRef
Oppenheimer, V. K. (1997). Women’s employment and the gain to marriage: The specialization and trading model. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 431–453. CrossRef
Oppenheimer, V. K., Kalmijn, M., & Nelson, L. (1997). Men’s career development and marriage timing during a period of rising inequality. Demography, 34, 311–330. CrossRef
Pencavel, J. (1998). Assortative mating by schooling and the work behavior of wives and husbands. American Economic Review, 88, 326–329.
Percheski, C. (2008). Opting out? Cohort differences in professional women’s employment rates from 1960 to 2005. American Sociological Review, 73, 497–517. CrossRef
Pestel, N. (2014). Beyond inequality accounting: Marital sorting and couple labor supply (IZA Discussion Paper No. 8482). Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor.
Reardon, S. F., & Bischoff, K. (2011). Income inequality and income segregation. American Journal of Sociology, 116, 1092–1153. CrossRef
Reed, D., & Cancian, M. (2012). Rising family income inequality: The importance of sorting. Journal of Income Distribution, 21(2), 3–14.
Ruggles, S. (2015). Patriarchy, power, and pay: The transformation of American families, 1800–2015. Demography, 52, 1797–1823. CrossRef
Ruggles, S., Alexander, J. T., Genadek, K., Goeken, R., Schroeder, M. B., & Sobek, M. (2010). Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
Ryder, N. B. (1965). The cohort as a concept in the study of social change. American Sociological Review, 30, 843–861. CrossRef
Schwartz, C. R. (2010). Earnings inequality and the changing association between spouses’ earnings. American Journal of Sociology, 115, 1524–1557. CrossRef
Schwartz, C. R. (2013). Trends and variation in assortative mating: Causes and consequences. Annual Review of Sociology, 39, 451–470. CrossRef
Schwartz, C. R., & Mare, R. D. (2005). Trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003. Demography, 42, 621–646. CrossRef
Stone, P. (2007). Opting out? Why women really quit careers and head home. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sweeney, M. M., & Cancian, M. (2004). The changing importance of white women’s economic prospects for assortative mating. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66, 1015–1028. CrossRef
Western, B., Bloome, D., & Percheski, C. (2008). Inequality among American families with children, 1975 to 2005. American Sociological Review, 73, 903–920. CrossRef
Xie, Y., Raymo, J. M., Goyette, K., & Thornton, A. (2003). Economic potential and entry into marriage and cohabitation. Demography, 40, 351–367. CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Trends in Economic Homogamy: Changes in Assortative Mating or the Division of Labor in Marriage?
Authors
Pilar Gonalons-Pons
Christine R. Schwartz
Publication date
28-04-2017
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Demography / Issue 3/2017
Print ISSN: 0070-3370
Electronic ISSN: 1533-7790
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-017-0576-0

Other articles of this Issue 3/2017

Demography 3/2017 Go to the issue

OriginalPaper

Non-Heterosexuality, Relationships, and Young Women’s Contraceptive Behavior

OriginalPaper

Trends in Education-Specific Life Expectancy, Data Quality, and Shifting Education Distributions: A Note on Recent Research

OriginalPaper

Back to School: Racial and Gender Differences in Adults’ Participation in Formal Schooling, 1978–2013

OriginalPaper

A Quiescent Phase in Human Mortality? Exploring the Ages of Least Vulnerability

OriginalPaper

Women Left Behind? Poverty and Headship in Africa

OriginalPaper

The Marriage Wealth Premium Revisited: Gender Disparities and Within-Individual Changes in Personal Wealth in Germany