Why Does Spousal Education Matter for Earnings? Assortative Mating and Cross-Productivity

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Huang, Chong; Li, Hongbin; Liu, Pak Wai; Zhang, Junsen
• 署名单位: Chinese University of Hong Kong; University of Pennsylvania; Tsinghua University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/644746
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 633-652
• 关键词: womens education; economic return; marriage; twins; benefits; sample; MARKET; ability; biases; FAMILY

摘要

Spousal education is correlated with earnings for two reasons: cross-productivity between couples and assortative mating. This article empirically disentangles the two effects by using Chinese twins data. We have two innovations: using twins data to control for the unobserved mating effect in our estimations and estimating both current and wedding-time earnings equations. We find that both cross-productivity and mating are important in explaining the current earnings. Although the mating effect exists for both husbands and wives, the cross-productivity effect mainly runs from Chinese husbands to wives. Our findings shed light on the theories of human capital, marriage, and the family.