Mohammad Hoseini (Tehran Institute for Advanced Studies, Khatam University)
How to measure the return to education in the marriage market and compare it to its return in the job market? To achieve this, we develop a method based on a frictionless matching model with transferable utility in the job market and imperfectly transferable utility in the marriage market. Our approach relies on observed match types in each market (spouse and occupation) and incorporates transfer in the job market (earnings) as an additional moment for estimation. Evidence from the U.S. suggests that, for women, marrying a more educated spouse consistently yields positive marriage returns, but this is not always the case for men. Over time, however, there has been a shift, with increased acceptance of graduate-educated wives after 2000. At the lower end of the educational distribution, additional education improves spouse quality more than job quality, whereas at the upper end, the job return significantly surpasses the spouse return. In 2017, women with a bachelor's degree were indifferent between marrying a man with at least a bachelor's degree and a 16 percent increase in earnings (~9,600 in 2023 terms) while remaining single. For men, the corresponding figure was a 20 percent increase in earnings (~$19,200 in 2023 terms).