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This paper was published in the Journal of Population Economics in 1996.

Download the Paper (1019 K, PDF file) - August 11, 1995 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing.

ABSTRACT:
In an earlier paper Courtship as a Waiting Game, Mark Bagnoli and I proposed a theory that explained why it is the case that in almost every society and at almost all recorded times, the average age at marriage of men exceeds that of women. An additional prediction of this model was that men who married later in life would turn out to have higher incomes when they reach maturity than those who marry young. The current paper reviews this theory and tests it with U.S. data. Consistent with our theory, we find that there is a strong positive relationship for men between age at marriage and earnings in later life and that no such relationship exists for women.

SUGGESTED CITATION:
Ted Bergstrom and Bob Schoeni, "Income Prospects and Age at Marriage" (August 11, 1995). Department of Economics, UCSB. Ted Bergstrom. Paper 1995E.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucsbecon/bergstrom/1995E