An Investment-and-Marriage Model with Differential Fecundity: On the College Gender Gap

Journal of Political Economy, 129(5), 1464-1486, May 2021

31 Pages Posted: 27 Feb 2014 Last revised: 15 Jun 2022

See all articles by Hanzhe Zhang

Hanzhe Zhang

Department of Economics, Michigan State University

Date Written: September 23, 2020

Abstract

I build an investment-and-marriage model to provide a new explanation of the reversed college gender gap, i.e., more women than men are going to college. The explanation is based on differential fecundity and an equilibrium marriage-market effect. The model also sheds light on gender-specific relationships between age at marriage and midlife personal income for American men and women, and the evolving relationship between age at marriage and spousal income for American women.

Keywords: college gender gap, earnings gender gap, marriage age, nonassortative matching

JEL Classification: C78, D1, J1

Suggested Citation

Zhang, Hanzhe, An Investment-and-Marriage Model with Differential Fecundity: On the College Gender Gap (September 23, 2020). Journal of Political Economy, 129(5), 1464-1486, May 2021, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2401468 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2401468

Hanzhe Zhang (Contact Author)

Department of Economics, Michigan State University ( email )

486 West Circle Drive
East Lansing, MI 48824
United States

HOME PAGE: http://hanzhezhang.github.io/

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