IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/fistud/v41y2020i1p39-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changes in Assortative Matching and Inequality in Income: Evidence for the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre‐André Chiappori
  • Monica Costa‐Dias
  • Sam Crossman
  • Costas Meghir

Abstract

The extent to which like‐with‐like marry is important for inequality as well as for the outcomes of children who result from the union. In this paper, we present evidence on changes in assortative mating and its implications for household inequality in the UK. Our approach contrasts with others in the literature in that it is consistent with an underlying model of the marriage market. We argue that a key advantage of this approach is that it creates a direct connection between changes in assortativeness in marriage and changes in the value of marriage for the various possible matches by education group. Our empirical results do not show a clear direction of change in assortativeness in the UK between the birth cohorts of 1945–54 and 1965–74. We find that changes in assortativeness pushed income inequality up slightly, but that the strong changes in education attainment across the two cohorts contributed to scale down inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre‐André Chiappori & Monica Costa‐Dias & Sam Crossman & Costas Meghir, 2020. "Changes in Assortative Matching and Inequality in Income: Evidence for the UK," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 39-63, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:fistud:v:41:y:2020:i:1:p:39-63
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-5890.12217
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-5890.12217
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-5890.12217?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Georgi Kocharkov & Cezar Santos, 2014. "Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 348-353, May.
    2. Eugene Choo & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Who Marries Whom and Why," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 175-201, February.
    3. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Stepwise Multiple Testing as Formalized Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1282, July.
    4. Romano, Joseph P. & Shaikh, Azeem M. & Wolf, Michael, 2008. "Formalized Data Snooping Based On Generalized Error Rates," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 404-447, April.
    5. Raquel Fernández & Nezih Guner & John Knowles, 2005. "Love and Money: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Household Sorting and Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 273-344.
    6. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & John A. Knowles, 2003. "More on Marriage, Fertility, and the Distribution of Income," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(3), pages 827-862, August.
    7. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1.
    8. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2020. "Changes in Assortative Matching: Theory and Evidence for the US," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2226, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    9. Pierre-André Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2018. "The Marriage Market, Labor Supply, and Education Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(S1), pages 26-72.
    10. Lasse Eika & Magne Mogstad & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2795-2835.
    11. Raquel Fernández & Richard Rogerson, 2001. "Sorting and Long-Run Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1305-1341.
    12. Blundell, Richard & Joyce, Robert & Norris Keiller, Agnes & Ziliak, James P., 2018. "Income inequality and the labour market in Britain and the US," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 48-62.
    13. Romano, Joseph P. & Wolf, Michael, 2016. "Efficient computation of adjusted p-values for resampling-based stepdown multiple testing," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 38-40.
    14. Pierre-André Chiappori & Bernard Salanié & Yoram Weiss, 2017. "Partner Choice, Investment in Children, and the Marital College Premium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2109-2167, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bram De Rock & Mariia Kovaleva & Tom Potoms, 2023. "A Spouse and a House are all we need? Housing Demand, Labor Supply and Divorce over the Lifecycle," Working Papers ECARES 2023-18, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Pierre-André Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2020. "Changes in Assortative Matching: Theory and Evidence for the US," Working Papers 2020-033, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Li Han & Xinzheng Shi & Ming-ang Zhang, 2022. "How Does Matching Uncertainty Affect Marital Surplus? Theory and Evidence from China," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202202, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    4. Ricky Kanabar, 2024. "Assortative mating and wealth inequality in Great Britain: evidence from the baby boomer and Gen X cohorts," CEPEO Working Paper Series 24-07, UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, revised Nov 2024.
    5. Almar, Frederik & Schulz, Bastian, 2024. "Optimal weights for marital sorting measures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    6. Erik Stivens PadillaGalviz & Montserrat Vilalta-Bufí, 2023. "Educational Assortative Mating in the European Regions," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2023/458, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    7. Bart Capéau & André Decoster & Bram De Rock & Jonas Vanderkelen, 2024. "Did Belgium withstand the Storm of Rising Inequalities? Income Inequality in Belgium, 1985-2020," Working Papers ECARES 2024-05, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Iryna Kyzyma & Alessio Fusco & Philippe Van Kerm, 2022. "Distributional Change: Assessing the Contribution of Household Income Sources," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(1), pages 158-184, February.
    9. Arnaud Dupuy & Simon Weber, 2022. "Marriage Market Counterfactuals Using Matching Models," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 29-43, January.
    10. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2021. "The Measuring of Assortativeness in Marriage," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2316, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    11. Echeverría, Lucía & Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto, 2023. "Commuting in dual-earner households: International gender differences with time use surveys," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3932, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    12. İşcan, Talan B. & Lim, Kyoung Mook, 2022. "Structural transformation and inequality: The case of South Korea," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    13. Benny, Liza & Bhalotra, Sonia & Fernández, Manuel, 2021. "Occupation flexibility and the graduate gender wage gap in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2021-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    14. Cezar Santos & Michèle Tertilt, 2023. "How Families Matter for Understanding Economic Inequality," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_456, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre-André Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2020. "Changes in Assortative Matching: Theory and Evidence for the US," Working Papers 2020-033, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    2. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir, 2021. "The Measuring of Assortativeness in Marriage," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2316, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    3. Pierre-André Chiappori & Edoardo Ciscato & Carla Guerriero, 2020. "Analyzing Matching Patterns in Marriage: Theory and Application to Italian Data," Working Papers 2020-080, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    4. Edoardo Ciscato, 2019. "Matching models with and without frictions : applications to the economics of the family [Modèles d'appariement avec et sans frictions : applications à l'économie de la famille]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03411916, HAL.
    5. Arnaud Dupuy & Simon Weber, 2022. "Marriage Market Counterfactuals Using Matching Models," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 29-43, January.
    6. Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren & Penglase, Jacob, 2023. "Changes in assortative matching and educational inequality: evidence from marriage and birth records in Mexico," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(4), pages 587-607, December.
    7. Quentin Lippmann & Khushboo Surana, 2022. "The Hierarchy of Partner Preferences," Discussion Papers 22/08, Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Anton A. Cheremukhin & Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria & Antonella Tutino, 2023. "Marriage Market Sorting in the U.S," Working Papers 2023-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised 25 Sep 2024.
    9. Jeremy Greenwood & Nezih Guner & Georgi Kocharkov & Cezar Santos, 2016. "Technology and the Changing Family: A Unified Model of Marriage, Divorce, Educational Attainment, and Married Female Labor-Force Participation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 1-41, January.
    10. Doepke, M. & Tertilt, M., 2016. "Families in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1789-1891, Elsevier.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/660vg58v5k8erajtn9uj2uue81 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Pierre-André Chiappori & Edoardo Ciscato & Carla Guerriero, 2021. "Analyzing Matching Patterns in Marriage:Theory and Application to Italian Data," CSEF Working Papers 613, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    13. Vera Tolstova, 2021. "Marital Sorting and Cross-Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Persistence," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp680, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    14. Edoardo Ciscato & Simon Weber, 2020. "The role of evolving marital preferences in growing income inequality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 307-347, January.
    15. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/660vg58v5k8erajtn9uj2uue81 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Nawid Siassi, 2019. "Inequality and the Marriage Gap," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 31, pages 160-181, January.
    17. Nie, Haifeng & Xing, Chunbing, 2019. "Education expansion, assortative marriage, and income inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 37-51.
    18. Gayle, George-Levi & Golan, Limor & Soytas, Mehmet A., 2022. "What is the source of the intergenerational correlation in earnings?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 24-45.
    19. Jacques Silber & Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat & Lusi Liao, 2022. "On the measurement of non-random mating and of its change over time," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 161-198, March.
    20. Rania Gihleb & Kevin Lang, 2020. "Educational Homogamy and Assortative Mating Have Not Increased," Research in Labor Economics, in: Change at Home, in the Labor Market, and On the Job, volume 48, pages 1-26, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    21. Almar, Frederik & Schulz, Bastian, 2024. "Optimal weights for marital sorting measures," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    22. Anna NAZSZODI & Francisco MENDONCA, 2023. "A new method for identifying the role of marital preferences at shaping marriage patterns," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(1), pages 1-27, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:fistud:v:41:y:2020:i:1:p:39-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1475-5890 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.