University of Wisconsin–Madison

Assortative Mating, the Division of Labor in Marriage, and Analytic Choices

Demography

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Highlights

  • We use the large samples of U.S. Census and ACS data from 1940–2013 to conduct a reanalysis.
  • The evidence for changes in the division of labor after marriage is robust.
  • The evidence on assortative mating is more variable, even in large samples.
  • Our best estimate is that assortative mating explains 29% of earnings homogamy trends.
  • The definition of newlyweds and treatment of missing values are consequential.