Women working full-time in the UK earn on average about 18% per hour less than men (EOC, 2005). Traditional labour economics has focussed on gender differences in human capital to explain the gender wage gap. Although differences in male and female human capital are recognized to derive from...

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...

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...

How marriage interacts with men's earnings is an important public policy issue, given debates over programs to directly encourage healthy marriages. This paper generates new findings about the earnings-marriage relationship by estimating the linkages between marriage, work commitment, and wage...

This analysis of March 1993 Current Population Survey data suggests that managers with working wives earn lower wages than their counterparts with non-working wives. The labor supply decisions of managers' wives appear to be unaffected by (that is, "exogenous" with respect to) their husbands'...

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...

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, cohabiting, and divorced men in Sweden earn more than single men. The wage premium earned by married men has declined since 1968, mainly due to decreasing productivity differences between married and single men. During this period, reforms have been undertaken to induce spouses to share...

This paper provides new evidence on wage premiums for men in relation to marriage and cohabitation. Using data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, the paper shows that even after accounting for selection there is a cohabitation wage premium, albeit smaller than the marriage...