Investment in schooling and the marriage market

Pierre André Chiappori*, Murat Iyigun, Yoram Weiss

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We present a model in which investment in schooling generates two kinds of returns: the labor-market return, resulting from higher wages, and a marriagemarket return, defined as the impact of schooling on the marital surplus share one can extract. Men and women may have different incentives to invest in schooling because of different market wages or household roles. This asymmetry can yield a mixed equilibrium with some educated individuals marrying uneducated spouses. When the labor-market return to schooling rises, home production demands less time, and the traditional spousal labor division norms weaken, more women may invest in schooling than men. (JEL I21, J12, J24, J31).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1689-1713
Number of pages25
JournalAmerican Economic Review
Volume99
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2009

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Investment in schooling and the marriage market'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this