Marital Sorting and Inequality: How Educational Categorization Matters

Arbeitspapier

This paper revisits the link between education-based marriage market sorting and income inequality. Leveraging Danish administrative data, we develop a novel categorization of marriage market types based on the starting wages and wage growth trajectories associated with educational programs: ambition types. We find a substantial increase in sorting by educational ambition over time, which explains more than 40% of increasing inequality since 1980. In contrast, sorting trends are flat with the commonly used level of education. Hence, the mapping between education and marriage-market types matters crucially for conclusions about the role of marital sorting in rising income inequality.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 10265

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft
• Subject: Ehe ; Partnerwahl ; Bildungsniveau ; Bildungsabschluss ; Einkommensverteilung ; Theorie ; Dänemark

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Almar, Frederik ; Friedrich, Benjamin ; Reynoso, Ana ; Schulz, Bastian ; Vejlin, Rune
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/271909
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET