The Her in Inheritance: How Marriage Matching Has Always Mattered, Quebec 1800-1970

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Curtis, Matthew
• 署名单位: University of Southern Denmark
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050725101010
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: social-mobility; UNITED-STATES; INEQUALITY; TRENDS

摘要

When did marriage become strongly assortative? I use a uniquely suitable database from Quebec 1800-1970 to provide the long-run perspective necessary to answer this question. First, I develop a novel method that reveals that marriage was highly assortative as far back as the early nineteenth century. Next, I show this matching depends on the individual human capital of women, not just on family backgrounds. Finally, I show that mothers had an effect on child outcomes independent of the fathers. Thus, despite deeply conservative gender norms, marriage matching-and women-have always mattered for social mobility.