Who Married, (to) Whom, and Where? Trends in Marriage in the United States, 1850-1940

40 Pages Posted: 27 Oct 2020

See all articles by Claudia Olivetti

Claudia Olivetti

Boston College; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Daniele Paserman

Boston University - Department of Economics; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Laura Salisbury

York University - Department of Economics

E. Anna Weber

Boston University

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Abstract

We present new findings about the relationship between marriage and socioeconomic background in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Imputing socioeconomic status of family of origin from first names, we document a socioeconomic gradient for women in the probability of marriage and the socioeconomic status of husbands. This socioeconomic gradient becomes steeper over time. We investigate the degree to which it can be explained by occupational income divergence across geographic regions. Regional divergence explains about one half of the socioeconomic divergence in the probability of marriage, and almost all of the increase in marital sorting. Differences in urbanization rates and the share of foreign-born across states drive most of these differences, while other factors (the scholarization rate, the sex ratio and the share in manufacturing) play a smaller role.

Keywords: marriage, assortative mating, gender, intergenerational mobility, regional convergence

JEL Classification: J12, J62, N31, N32, N91, N92

Suggested Citation

Olivetti, Claudia and Paserman, Daniele and Salisbury, Laura and Weber, E. Anna, Who Married, (to) Whom, and Where? Trends in Marriage in the United States, 1850-1940. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13811, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3718191 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3718191

Claudia Olivetti (Contact Author)

Boston College ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
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Daniele Paserman

Boston University - Department of Economics ( email )

270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
United States

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Mount Scopus
Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905
Israel

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
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United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Laura Salisbury

York University - Department of Economics ( email )

4700 Keele St.
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
Canada

E. Anna Weber

Boston University

595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
United States

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