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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Income Prospects And Age At Marriage, Ted Bergstrom, Bob Schoeni
Income Prospects And Age At Marriage, Ted Bergstrom, Bob Schoeni
Ted C Bergstrom
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 …
Courtship As A Waiting Game, Ted Bergstrom, Mark Bagnoli
Courtship As A Waiting Game, Ted Bergstrom, Mark Bagnoli
Ted C Bergstrom
In most times and places, women on average, marry older men. We suggest a partial explanation. If the economic roles of males are more specialized than those of females, the desirability of a female as a mate may become evident at an earlier age than is the case for males. Males with good prospects will wait until their economic success is revealed before choosing a bride. Those with poor prospects try to marry young. In equilibrium, the most desirable young females choose successful older males. The less desirable young females have no better option than to marry available young males.
Recovering Event Histories By Cubic Spline Interpolation, Ted Bergstrom, David Lam
Recovering Event Histories By Cubic Spline Interpolation, Ted Bergstrom, David Lam
Ted C Bergstrom
If event histories are recorded in discrete intervals of times, errors are introduced when the data are converted from the unit in which they were recorded, such as date, to another unit such as age or duration. The problem is illustrated by the inconsistent age at marriage schedules published by two recent U.S. censuses. This paper develops a general method for fixing problems of this kind by using cubic spline interpolation. We use the method to adjust U.S. age at marriage data, thus resolving a large proportion of the discrepancy between 1960 and 1970 censuses.