Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/21337 
Year of Publication: 
2005
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 1561
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Both men and women wish to have a family and a rewarding career. In this paper, we show that the under-representation of women in high-powered professions may reflect a coordination failure in young women?s marriage-timing decisions. Since investing in a highpowered career imposes time strain, it precludes early participation in the marriage market. Delayed participation in the marriage market has a higher cost for women than for men because women have shorter fecundity horizons. Marriage prospects of high-powered women depend on the marriage-timing decisions of younger women. Under these assumptions, we show that women?s marriage-timing decisions exhibit strategic complementarities. Coordination failures in women?s marriage-timing decisions lead to persisting gender differences in career choices. Yet, differential fecundity is only necessary, but not sufficient to obtain gender inequality in high-powered professions. We discuss social changes that solve the coordination failure while achieving a Pareto-improvement in the society at large.
Subjects: 
marriage-timing
high-powered career
supermodular game
strategic complementarities
multiple equilibria
coordination failure
JEL: 
J24
J16
J12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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