Publication: Gender differences and the timing of first marriages
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2008-02
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Abstract
In this article we provide a simple model of the marriage market where singles search for
spouses. In our model economy men and women live for many years and they differ in their
survival probabilities, in their fecundity, and in their earnings. We show that modelling the
marriage decision in a very simple model economy is sufficient to account for much of the
observed marriage behavior in the United States in the year 2000. We conclude that gender
differences in fecundity are all important in accounting for marriage behavior, and that
differences in earnings matter little. We also conclude that, even though they are in short supply,
the market power of fecund women is not enough for them to demand compensation in all
cases. And that studying the marriage decision without modelling explicitly the roles played by
age and by fecundity, as has been typically done by the previous literature, makes little sense.
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Marriage, Search, Sex ratio