IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1607.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Marriage, Wealth, and Unemployment Duration: A Gender Asymmetry Puzzle

Author

Listed:
  • Lentz, Rasmus

    (Boston University)

  • Tranæs, Torben

    (VIVE - The Danish Centre for Applied Social Science)

Abstract

This note presents evidence of the following gender asymmetry: the job-finding effort of married men and women is affected by the income of their spouses in opposite directions. For women, spouse income influences job finding negatively, just as own wealth does: the more the man earns and the wealthier the woman is, the longer it takes for her to find a job. The contrary is the case for men, where spouse income affects job finding positively: the more the wife earns, the faster the husband finds a job. This is so despite the fact that greater own wealth also prolongs unemployment spells for men. These findings are hard to reconcile with the traditional economic model of the family.

Suggested Citation

  • Lentz, Rasmus & Tranæs, Torben, 2005. "Marriage, Wealth, and Unemployment Duration: A Gender Asymmetry Puzzle," IZA Discussion Papers 1607, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1607
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1607.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yann Algan & Arnaud Cheron & Jean-Olivier Hairault & Francois Langot, 2003. "Wealth Effect on Labor Market Transitions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(1), pages 156-178, January.
    2. Rasmus Lentz & Torben Tranas, 2005. "Job Search and Savings: Wealth Effects and Duration Dependence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(3), pages 467-490, July.
    3. Rasmus Lentz, 2009. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance in an Estimated Job Search Model with Savings," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 37-57, January.
    4. John M. Abowd & Patrick Corbel & Francis Kramarz, 1999. "The Entry And Exit Of Workers And The Growth Of Employment: An Analysis Of French Establishments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 170-187, May.
    5. 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.
    6. Svarer, Michael, "undated". "Determinants of Divorce in Denmark," Economics Working Papers 2002-19, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    7. Bloemen, Hans G & Stancanelli, Elena G F, 2001. "Individual Wealth, Reservation Wages, and Transitions into Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 400-439, April.
    8. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/9704 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Heckman, James & Singer, Burton, 1984. "A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 271-320, March.
    10. Meyer, Bruce D, 1990. "Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Spells," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 757-782, July.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/9704 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Lammers, Marloes, 2014. "The effects of savings on reservation wages and search effort," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 83-98.

    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. Rendon Sílvio, 2006. "Job Search And Asset Accumulation Under Borrowing Constraints ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(1), pages 233-263, February.
    2. François Fontaine & Janne Nyborg Jensen & Rune Vejlin, 2019. "Wealth, Portfolios, and Unemployment Duration," 2019 Meeting Papers 949, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Stefania Marcassa, 2014. "Unemployment Duration of Spouses: Evidence From France," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(4), pages 399-429, December.
    4. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley & Eric F. Smith, 2007. "Asset Accumulation and Short Term Employment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(3), pages 400-423, July.
    5. Chaumont, Gaston & Shi, Shouyong, 2022. "Wealth accumulation, on-the-job search and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 51-71.
    6. Mesén Vargas, Juliana & Van der Linden, Bruno, 2017. "Is There Always a Trade-off between Insurance and Incentives? The Case of Unemployment with Subsistence Constraints," IZA Discussion Papers 11034, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Haywood, Luke, 2016. "Wealth effects on job preferences," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 38, pages 1-11.
    8. Denise Doiron & Silvia Mendolia, 2012. "The impact of job loss on family dissolution," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 367-398, January.
    9. Mário Centeno & Álvaro A. Novo, 2014. "Do Low-Wage Workers React Less to Longer Unemployment Benefits? Quasi-Experimental Evidence," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(2), pages 185-207, April.
    10. Andrey Launov & Klaus Wälde, 2013. "Estimating Incentive And Welfare Effects Of Nonstationary Unemployment Benefits," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1159-1198, November.
    11. Vejlin, Rune, 2017. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance: How Important Is The Demand Side?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(8), pages 2070-2095, December.
    12. Ben Lodewijks, 2011. "Financial Constraints and Job Mobility in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 87(276), pages 61-75, March.
    13. Rasmus Lentz, 2009. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance in an Estimated Job Search Model with Savings," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 37-57, January.
    14. Lammers, Marloes, 2014. "The effects of savings on reservation wages and search effort," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 83-98.
    15. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Jeremy Lise, 2006. "On-the-Job Search and Precautionary Savings: Theory and Empirics of Earnings and Wealth Inequality," 2006 Meeting Papers 137, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Keane, Michael P. & Todd, Petra E. & Wolpin, Kenneth I., 2011. "The Structural Estimation of Behavioral Models: Discrete Choice Dynamic Programming Methods and Applications," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 4, pages 331-461, Elsevier.
    18. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 13967, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Tricia Gladden & Michelle Alexopoulos, 2004. "The Effects of Wealth, and Unemployment Benefits on Search Behavior and Labor Market Transitions," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 517, Econometric Society.
    20. Raj Chetty, 2005. "Why do Unemployment Benefits Raise Unemployment Durations? Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 11760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender asymmetries; wealth effects on job finding; unemployment duration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

    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:dp1607. 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.