Assortative Matching and the Education Gap

This paper attempts to explain the decrease and reversal of the education gap between males and females. Given a continuum of agents, the education decisions are modelled as an assignment game with endogenous types. In the ...rst stage agents choose their education level and in the second they participate in the labor and marriage markets. Competition among potential matches en- sures that the e¢ cient education levels can always be sustained in equilibrium, but there may be ine¢ cient equilibria. Combining asymmetries intrinsic to the modelled markets the model reproduces the observed education gap.