This short spark plug of a book written in 2015 by author Jon Birger was hard to put down. The book is informative on the idea of “marriage markets” and makes the case that, “college and post-college hookup culture, the decline in marriage rates among college-educated women, and the dearth of marriage-material men willing to commit are all by-products of lopsided gender ratios and a massive undersupply of college educated men.” (p. 5)

Recall from an earlier blog post, when there are more women relative to men, women compete with each other and effectively lower their “asking price” (their share of the marital benefits). This also applies to dating markets too. If you’re having trouble seeing how sex ratios matter, consider this example from the book,

“Among undergrads at UNC there are 50 percent more women than men …” That is for every 40 men there are 60 women which means 3 women for every 2 men, “If you want to visualize what 3:2 looks like, imagine you’re back in college. Imagine it’s late at night, and you’re hanging out with friends in someone’s dorm room. Imagine everyone has had a few beers, the mood is flirty, and people are thinking about pairing off. Now imagine there are three women and two men.” 

In class today we discuss education and marriage. While we see a general trend toward fewer and later marriages there are substantial differences across education. More educated men and women are marrying more than less educated men and women. They are also divorcing less. So highly educated people who are well-paid are combining their incomes and securing the benefits that come from marriage. Meanwhile less educated individuals are either not forming relationships (single parents) or forming relationships and living arrangements that are less durable (e.g. cohabitation). So on average there is either a low single income or two low but combined incomes. This is a topic that has been discussed substantially in news outlets. For example, here are articles from The Atlantic, Forbes, and Freakonomics.

You can imagine this has lead to substantial income inequality. For example, this study from a few years ago in the NBER reports that, “Data from the United States Census Bureau suggests there has been a rise in assortative mating….[I]f matching in 2005 between husbands and wives had been random, instead of the pattern observed in the data, then the Gini coefficient would have fallen from the observed 0.43 to 0.34, so that income inequality would be smaller.”

That assortative mating refers to people sorting into relationships with people like them. In this case, people with high education marrying people with high education. But, even for its coverage in the media, we probably do not discuss enough how rising income inequality is driven by patterns in marriage and divorce among those with high and low education.

In the immortal words of Haddaway, “What is love?” Despite being in bed all of Tuesday, and not being up-to-the-task of teaching Wednesday, I mustered enough energy to talk with the Economics Club at FSU about the “Economics of Romance”.

In that talk, I started with some good economics jokes — some of which can be found here. Skipped some really bad economics pick-up lines, and waxed about the dangers of thinking at the margin in a world that thinks about levels. For example, the next time your spouse asks whether the presentation you’re writing is more important than them …. well, don’t try to explain marginal thinking to them.

Last week I wrote about the “marriage market“. In many ways, the marriage market is like a labor market: there are search costs, match quality, competition for mates, and so on. When one side of the market becomes more abundant, that side become less picky — their minimum willingness to accept goes down.

Today we examine war as a shock that makes women more abundant than men. The marriage market predicts this shock will mean a smaller fraction of women will marry but those that do receive a smaller share of the benefits from marriage. Also, a larger fraction of men will marry and receive a larger share of the benefits from marriage.

Ran Abramitzky, Adeline Delavande, and Luis Vasconcelos investigate marriage in pre-and-post World War 1 (WW1) France where an estimated 16.5 percent of the French male population died or were missing in WW1. You can see from the map below that some “departments” suffered greater losses than others. Across France, the sex ratio was nearly even before the war and after the war, “If we focus on singles, widows, and divorces who were 30 years old or younger but of marriageable age, there were approximately 2 men for every 3 women.”

For those not familiar with the idea of a “marriage market”, consider the following quote from Gary Becker from his paper “A Theory of Marriage, Part 1” (emphasis own),

“Two simple principles form the heart of the analysis. The first is that, since marriage is practically always voluntary … the theory of preferences can be readily applied, and persons marrying can be assumed to expect to raise their utility level above what it would be were they to remain single. The second is that, since many men and many women compete as they seek mates, a market can be presumed to exist. Each person tries to find the best mate, subject to … market conditions” (p. 814)

When the unexpected happens, who are you going to call? One of the important social functions of religion is that it operates as social insurance. For example, someone who cannot afford groceries, rent, or some other staple like their utility payment might contact their local church leader and ask if there is possibility for assistance during this difficult time. At this point, some might be saying, “They shouldn’t have to do this. The government should provide a safety net for these people.”

There is certainly a connection between the social insurance function of the government and churches. For example, Daniel Hungerman (2004) uses the 1996 Welfare Reform Act to document that the church and state are substitutes in the provision of social services. Part of welfare reform was to restrict welfare payments made to immigrants. Therefore, churches in states with a larger share of immigrants should see a greater decline in welfare payments and, if the church and state are substitutes, a larger increase in church spending on social activities. That is exactly what Hungerman finds. For every one dollar reduction, churches increased spending by 20 – 38 cents.