IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11175.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Searching on Campus? Marriage Market Effects of the Student Gender Composition

Author

Listed:
  • Pestel, Nico

    (Maastricht University)

Abstract

This paper studies marriage market effects of the student gender composition for university graduates using German Microcensus data and aggregate information on the student sex ratio by field of study for 41 different fields from 1977 to 2011. Experiencing a higher own-gender share of students during university education reduces overall marriage market opportunities for women but not for men. Moreover, when students of the own gender are relatively abundant, the probability of having a partner from the same field decreases for women, while men are more likely to marry down with respect to educational status.

Suggested Citation

  • Pestel, Nico, 2017. "Searching on Campus? Marriage Market Effects of the Student Gender Composition," IZA Discussion Papers 11175, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11175
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11175.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nico Pestel, 2017. "Marital Sorting, Inequality and the Role of Female Labour Supply: Evidence from East and West Germany," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(333), pages 104-127, January.
    2. Mansour, Hani & McKinnish, Terra, 2014. "Same-Occupation Spouses: Preferences and Search Costs," IZA Discussion Papers 8370, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Marianne Bertrand & Emir Kamenica & Jessica Pan, 2015. "Gender Identity and Relative Income within Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(2), pages 571-614.
    4. Josh Angrist, 2002. "How Do Sex Ratios Affect Marriage and Labor Markets? Evidence from America's Second Generation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 997-1038.
    5. Jeanne Lafortune, 2013. "Making Yourself Attractive: Pre-marital Investments and the Returns to Education in the Marriage Market," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 151-178, April.
    6. Alena Bicakova & Stepan Jurajda, 2016. "Field-of-Study Homogamy," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp561, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    7. 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.
    8. Ran Abramitzky & Adeline Delavande & Luis Vasconcelos, 2011. "Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 124-157, July.
    9. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz & Ilyana Kuziemko, 2006. "The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 133-156, Fall.
    10. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix, 2002. "Marriage Market, Divorce Legislation, and Household Labor Supply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 37-72, February.
    11. Christian Bredemeier & Falko Juessen, 2013. "Assortative Mating and Female Labor Supply," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 603-631.
    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. Daniel Alan Seiver & Dennis H. Sullivan, 2020. "A Study of Major Impact: Assortative Mating and Earnings Inequality Among U.S. College Graduates," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 48(2), pages 237-252, June.
    2. Rodríguez-González, Ana, 2021. "The Impact of the Female Advantage in Education on the Marriage Market," Working Papers 2021:5, Lund University, Department of Economics.

    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. Pestel, Nico, 2016. "Searching on the Campus? Marriage Market Effects of the Student Gender Composition by Field of Study," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145510, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Nico Pestel, 2021. "Searching on campus? The marriage market effects of changing student sex ratios," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1175-1207, December.
    3. Alena Bičáková & Štěpán Jurajda, 2017. "Gender composition of college graduates by field of study and early fertility," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 1323-1343, December.
    4. Alena Bicakova & Stepan Jurajda, 2014. "The Quiet Revolution and the Family: Gender Composition of Tertiary Education and Early Fertility Patterns," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp504, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    5. Mayuri Chaturvedi, 2022. "Schooling Down to Marry Up: Marriage Norms and Educational Investments," Working Papers 202216, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    6. Rodríguez-González, Ana, 2021. "The Impact of the Female Advantage in Education on the Marriage Market," Working Papers 2021:5, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    7. Daiji Kawaguchi & Soohyung Lee, 2017. "Brides For Sale: Cross-Border Marriages And Female Immigration," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 633-654, April.
    8. Kota Ogasawara & Erika Igarashi, 2021. "The Impacts of the Gender Imbalance on the Marriage Market: Evidence from World War II in Japan," Papers 2102.00687, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    9. Chang, Simon & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2015. "Mating competition and entrepreneurship," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 292-309.
    10. Nicola Barban & Elisabetta De Cao & Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2016. "Assortative Mating on Education: A Genetic Assessment," Working Papers 2016-034, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    11. Kesternich, Iris & Siflinger, Bettina & Smith, James P. & Steckenleiter, Carina, 2020. "Unbalanced sex ratios in Germany caused by World War II and their effect on fertility: A life cycle perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    12. Tan, Zhibo & Wei, Shang-Jin & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2021. "Deadly discrimination: Implications of “missing girls” for workplace safety," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    13. Stopnitzky, Yaniv, 2012. "The Bargaining Power of Missing Women: Evidence from a Sanitation Campaign in India," MPRA Paper 37841, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Timothy Halliday & Sumner La Croix, 2013. "Sons, Daughters, and Labor Supply in Early Twentieth-Century Hawaii," Working Papers 201318, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    15. Ran Abramitzky & Adeline Delavande & Luis Vasconcelos, 2011. "Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 124-157, July.
    16. Elizabeth Brainerd, 2017. "The Lasting Effect of Sex Ratio Imbalance on Marriage and Family: Evidence from World War II in Russia," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 229-242, May.
    17. Du, Julan & Wang, Yongqin & Zhang, Yan, 2015. "Sex imbalance, marital matching and intra-household bargaining: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 197-218.
    18. La Mattina, Giulia, 2017. "Civil conflict, domestic violence and intra-household bargaining in post-genocide Rwanda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 168-198.
    19. Benjamin Goldman & Jamie Gracie & Sonya R. Porter, 2024. "Who Marries Whom? The Role of Segregation by Race and Class," Working Papers 24-30, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    20. Afunts, Geghetsik & Jurajda, Štepán, 2022. "Who Divorces Whom: Unilateral Divorce Legislation and the Educational Structure of Marriage," IZA Discussion Papers 15749, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    marriage markets; sex ratio; higher education; Germany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp11175. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.