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Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality
Abstract
Has there been an increase in positive assortative mating? Does assortative mating contribute to household income inequality? Data from the United States Census Bureau suggests there has been a rise in assortative mating. Additionally, assortative mating affects household income inequality. In particular, if matching in 2005 between husbands and wives had been random, instead of the pattern observed in the data, then the Gini coefficient would have fallen from the observed 0.43 to 0.34, so that income inequality would be smaller. Thus, assortative mating is important for income inequality. The high level of married female labor-force participation in 2005 is important for this result.
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“Moreover, recent evidence suggests that mating has become more assortative over time in the United States as inequality has risen (Greenwood et al. 2014, Greenwood et al. 2016, Chiappori, Dias, and Meghir 2020).”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Greenwood et al. 2014
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Metadata
- Authors
- Greenwood, J., Guner, N., Kocharkov, G., & Santos, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- MOVE, Facultat d'Economia, Edifici B, Campus de Bellaterra, 08193 Bellaterra, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain (e-mail: )
- University of Konstanz (DE)
- University of Mannheim (DE)
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2014-05-01
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 348-353
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2116623494
- Cited by
- 411
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 40 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 42 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 10
- FWCI
- 77.13
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
- Keywords
- assortative mating, household income inequality, Gini coefficient, married couples, female labor force participation, marriage patterns
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