After almost a century-long pattern of rising marital instability, divorce rates leveled off in 1980 and have been declining ever since. The timing of deceleration and decline in the rates of marital disruption interestingly coincides with a period of substantial growth in wage inequality. This...

Previous studies show that immigrants married to natives earn higher wages than immigrants married to other immigrants. Using data from the 1980-2000 U.S. censuses and the 2005- 2010 American Community Surveys, we show that these wage premiums have increased over time. Our evidence suggests that...

The word for 'married' in Danish is the same as the word for 'poison'. The word for 'sweetheart' in Danish is the same as the word for 'tax'. In this paper we expand upon the literature documenting a significant marital wage premium for men in the United States to see if a similar differential...

After almost a century-long pattern of rising marital instability, divorce rates leveled off in 1980 and have been declining ever since. The timing of deceleration and decline in the rates of marital disruption interestingly coincides with a period of substantial growth in wage inequality. This...

I present a theory of couples' job search whereby women sort into lower-paying geographically-dispersed occupations due to expectations of future spouses' geographically-clustered occupations and (thereby) inability to relocate for work. Results confirm men segregate into...

This paper explores the effects of a spouse's personality on earnings. We build on the growing literature spanning economics and psychology that investigates how personality traits affect one's own individual earnings. In particular, several of the big five personality characteristics...

We show that parts of the unexplained wage gap in standard Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions result from the neglect of the role played by the family for individual wages. We present a simple model of dual-earner households facing a trade-off regarding whose career to promote and show analytically...

We examine changes in marriage and earnings patterns across four cohorts born between 1936 and 1975, using data from a series of Survey of Income and Program Participation panels linked to administrative data on earnings. We find that for both men and women, marriage has become increasingly...

Previous studies show that immigrants married to natives earn higher wages than immigrants married to other immigrants. Using data from the 1980-2000 U.S. censuses and the 2005-2010 American Community Surveys, we show that these wage premiums have increased over time. Our evidence suggests that...

Married white men have higher wages and faster wage growth than unmarried white men. Using the NLSY, we examine whether racial differences in intrahousehold specialization and formal training explain married men's faster wage growth, and individual-specific data on cognitive skills, family...