Premarital Investments and Multidimensional Matching

I expand Gary Becker’s market analysis of marriage behavior to derive a set of new implications about marriage and education. In my model, people can make college and career investments to improve their income and marriage prospects before they enter the marriage market. In the overlapping-generations marriage market, men are characterized by income, and women are characterized by income and reproductive fitness. Women’s reproductive fitness declines as they age, tampering with their career investment incentives. What investments people make, when they enter the marriage market, whom they marry, and how much they get in the marriage market are all endogenously determined. First, the model explains the observed relationships between marriage age and personal income. Second, the model helps explain the college gender gap puzzle that more women than men go to college. Third, the model explains the evolving relationship between wife’s marriage age and husband’s income. Finally, the model shows how different factors, especially uncertainty about future income, delay marriage.