On the Emergence of Toyboys: Equilibrium Matching With Ageing and Uncertain Careers

45 Pages Posted: 8 Mar 2007

See all articles by Melvyn G. Coles

Melvyn G. Coles

University of Essex - Department of Economics; Autonomous University of Barcelona; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Marco Francesconi

University of Essex; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Date Written: February 2007

Abstract

Toyboy marriages (where the female partner is at least 5 years older than her male partner) have grown threefold since the 1970s in the United States and Britain. This paper examines this phenomenon using an equilibrium search framework in which becoming successful in the labour market takes time and fitness decays with age. Our framework hinges on contract incompleteness in the marriage market and the assumption that the marginal gain to marrying someone rich is greatest for someone poor. With this structure we can explain why successful (older) types might marry fitter (younger) and less successful types. We show that toyboy marriages arise in equilibrium only when men and women have comparable labour market opportunities. U.S. and British data confirm this indicating that the probability that a woman is married to a toyboy increases by about 45 percent if, relative to her partner's, she is more educated and in a better paid job.

Keywords: two-sided search, marriage, ex-ante heterogeneity, non-transferable utility, ageing

JEL Classification: J12, J16, J62

Suggested Citation

Coles, Melvyn G. and Francesconi, Marco, On the Emergence of Toyboys: Equilibrium Matching With Ageing and Uncertain Careers (February 2007). IZA Discussion Paper No. 2612, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=969389 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.969389

Melvyn G. Coles

University of Essex - Department of Economics ( email )

Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom
+44 1206 873333 (Phone)
+44 1206 872724 (Fax)

Autonomous University of Barcelona

Plaça Cívica
Cerdañola del Valles
Barcelona, Barcelona 08193
SPAIN

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Marco Francesconi (Contact Author)

University of Essex ( email )

Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom
+44 1206 873 534 (Phone)
+44 1206 873 151 (Fax)

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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