HUI Working Papers, HUI Research
No 34:
The Effects of Assortative Mating on Earnings: Human Capital Spillover or Specialization?
Johanna Åström
Abstract: This paper studies how the spouse’s productivity in the
labor market affects one’s individual earnings when married. Theoretically,
the high productivity of a spouse in a marriage could affect the other
spouse’s earnings in two ways: negatively through specialization and
division of labor, or positively from human capital spillover. Using
longitudinal microdata on individuals as both single and married people
allows us to estimate the spouses’ productivity as a single persons and
thereby avoid problems of endogeneity between the two spouses’ labor market
performances. Productivity is approximated with residuals from estimates of
pre-marriage earnings equations. Results indicate that there are negative
effects of the spouse’s productivity on individual earnings for both males
and females, and that this effect appears to be enhanced by the duration of
the marriage. However, closer examination shows that only the youngest
groups of males and females experience this negative effect. In addition,
there is some evidence for a positive effect of the husband’s productivity
on earnings in the case of older groups of females.
Keywords: Marriage; Assortative mating; Earnings; Specialization; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: D10; J12; (follow links to similar papers)
36 pages, October 1, 2009
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