Who Married, (to) Whom, and Where? Trends in Marriage in the United States, 1850-1940

Claudia Olivetti, M. Daniele Paserman, Laura Salisbury and Anna Weber

No 28033, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We present new findings about the relationship between marriage and socioeconomic background in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Imputing socioeconomic status of family of origin from first names, we document a socioeconomic gradient for women in the probability of marriage and the socioeconomic status of husbands. This socioeconomic gradient becomes steeper over time. We investigate the degree to which it can be explained by occupational income divergence across geographic regions. Regional divergence explains about one half of the socioeconomic divergence in the probability of marriage, and almost all of the increase in marital sorting. Differences in urbanization rates and the share of foreign-born across states drive most of these differences, while other factors (the scholarization rate, the sex ratio and the share in manufacturing) play a smaller role.

JEL-codes: J12 J62 N31 N32 N91 N92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-his and nep-lab
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Working Paper: Who Married, (to) Whom, and Where? Trends in Marriage in the United States, 1850-1940 (2020)
Working Paper: Who Married, (to) Whom, and Where? Trends in Marriage in the United States, 1850-1940 (2020)
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