The survey presents basic facts on wage growth and summarizes the main ideas on the possible sources of this growth. We document that wage growth happens mainly early in the life cycle and is then associated with increasing labor force participation and high job mobility. Wage growth during the...

This chapter describes the economic reasons for marriage, how families solve their economic problems, the marriage market, divorce and its economic consequences, and the future of the family. A successful theory, which is capable of explaining the data on marriage and divorce must incorporate...

The chapter presents a survey on the determination of life cycle earnings. The chapter describes the theoretical work on the determination of life cycle earnings. The common thread in this work is the notion that workers can influence their earnings through various investment activities. A...

We develop a two-sided matching model with positive sorting, divorce and remarriage. Match quality for each couple is revealed ex post and those with poor draws divorce. Competition determines lifetime expected utilities but per-period utilities depend on the laws that govern the distribution of...

The paper analyzes the joint determination of wives' earnings and labor force participation over the life cycle given the interruptions in wives' work careers. The interruptions affect the profitability of the investment in human capital, which in turn determines earnings. The earnings prospects...