Program > Papers by author > Lefranc Arnaud

This paper analyzes economic assortative mating in France. We first provide descriptive evidence on the statistical association in various economic attributes of spouses (education, earnings, market wage rate) among French couples. Second, we assess the contribution of assortative mating to earnings inequality between couples. Our estimates account for possible biases in the estimation of assortative mating arising from sample-selection into the labor force. We also develop a new methodology for assessing the disequalizing impact of marital choice when labor force participation is endogenous with respect to match characteristics. Our results indicate a strong degree of assortative mating in France. The correlation coefficient for education is above .5. The correlation in earnings is lower but sizable : around .2 for annual earnings and .35 for full-time equivalent earnings. Assortative mating tends to increase inequality among couples. The effect on the distribution of annual incomes remains moderate and explains 3 to 10\% of measured inequality, depending on the counterfactual we use. The effect is however much larger for inequality in earnings potential and represents between 16\% and 30 \% of observed inequality.