IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gro/rugsom/99d57.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

"Living in sin" and marriage: a matching model

Author

Listed:
  • Rao Sahib, P. Padma
  • Gu, X. Xinhua

    (Groningen University)

Abstract

This paper develops a two sided matching model of premarital cohabitation and marriage in which premarital cohabitation serves as a period of learning. We solve for the optimal policy to be followed by individuals by treating the model as a three stage dynamic programming problem. We find that couples are more discriminating when forming marital unions than when forming cohabiting unions. Cohabitation unions arise among members of the same "class" and there is overlap between the classes formed by marital unions and cohabiting unions. This implies that some cohabiting unions progress to marriage while others do not, a finding borne out by empirical studies. Keywords: cohabitation, marriage, matching, assortative mating. JEL classification: D83; D84; J12.

Suggested Citation

  • Rao Sahib, P. Padma & Gu, X. Xinhua, 1999. ""Living in sin" and marriage: a matching model," Research Report 99D57, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    • Handle: RePEc:gro:rugsom:99d57
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/190864176
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weiss, Yoram & Willis, Robert J, 1997. "Match Quality, New Information, and Marital Dissolution," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 293-329, January.
    2. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    3. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 11-26, Part II, .
    4. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 299-351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Lee Lillard & Michael Brien & Linda Waite, 1995. "Premarital cohabitation and subsequent marital," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(3), pages 437-457, 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. Ermisch, John, 2000. "Employment opportunities and pre-marital births in Britain," ISER Working Paper Series 2000-26, Institute for Social and Economic Research.

    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. repec:dgr:rugsom:99d57 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Marcus Eliason, 2012. "Lost jobs, broken marriages," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 1365-1397, October.
    3. John Douglas Skåtun, 2017. "Bargaining on your Spouse: Coasean and Non-Coasean Behaviour Within Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 263-278, June.
    4. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen & Selma Walther, 2021. "Where did it go wrong? Marriage and divorce in Malawi," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 505-545, May.
    5. Blanden, Joanne, 2005. "Love and Money: Intergenerational Mobility and Marital Matching on Parental Income," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2005272e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    6. Quentin Lippmann & Alexandre Georgieff & Claudia Senik, 2020. "Undoing Gender with Institutions: Lessons from the German Division and Reunification," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(629), pages 1445-1470.
    7. Huang, Fali & Jin, Ginger Zhe & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Love, money, and parental goods: Does parental matchmaking matter?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 224-245.
    8. Gould, Eric D. & Paserman, M. Daniele, 2003. "Waiting for Mr. Right: rising inequality and declining marriage rates," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 257-281, March.
    9. Huang, Fali & Jin, Ginger Zhe & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2015. "Love, money, and old age support : does parental matchmaking matter ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7188, The World Bank.
    10. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Melvin Stephens, 2004. "Job Displacement, Disability, and Divorce," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 489-522, April.
    11. Sebastian Negrusa & Brighita Negrusa & James Hosek, 2014. "Gone to war: have deployments increased divorces?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 473-496, April.
    12. David J. G. Slusky & Donna K. Ginther, 2021. "Did Medicaid expansion reduce medical divorce?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1139-1174, December.
    13. Quentin Lippmann & Alexandre Georgieff & Claudia Senik, 2019. "Undoing Gender with Institutions. Lessons from the German Division and Reunification," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1031, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    14. Svarer, Michael, "undated". "Determinants of Divorce in Denmark," Economics Working Papers 2002-19, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    15. P. Wesley Routon, 2017. "Military service and marital dissolution: a trajectory analysis," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 335-355, March.
    16. John Graham & Jason Barr, 2008. "Assessing the geographic distribution of same sex and opposite sex couples across the United States: implications for claims of causality between traditional marriage and same sex unions," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 347-367, December.
    17. Shirley H. Liu & Frank Heiland, 2007. "New Estimates on the Effect of Parental Separation on Child Health," Working Papers 0719, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    18. Bowles, Roger & Garoupa, Nuno, 2002. "Household dissolution, child care and divorce law," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 495-510, December.
    19. Pierre–André Chiappori & Natalia Radchenko & Bernard Salanié, 2018. "Divorce and the duality of marital payoff," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 833-858, September.
    20. Brighita Negrusa & Sebastian Negrusa, 2014. "Home Front: Post-Deployment Mental Health and Divorces," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 895-916, June.
    21. John M. Nunley & Alan Seals, 2010. "The Effects of Household Income Volatility on Divorce," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 983-1010, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cohabitation; marriage; matching; assortative mating. jel classification: d83; d84; j12.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • 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:gro:rugsom:99d57. 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: Hanneke Tamling (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ferugnl.html .

    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.