Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/36255 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 4594
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We construct a matching model on the marriage market along more than one characteristic, where individuals have preferences over physical attractiveness (proxied by anthropometric characteristics) and market and household productivity of potential mates (proxied by socioeconomic characteristics), with a certain degree of substitutability between them. Men and women assess each other through an index combining these various attributes, so the matching is one-dimensional. We estimate the trade-offs among these characteristics using data from the PSID and the ECHP, finding evidence of compensation between anthropometric and socioeconomic characteristics. An additional unit of husband's (wife's) BMI can be compensated by a 0.3%-increase (0.15%-increase) in husband's (wife's) average (predicted) wage. Interestingly, these findings suggest that female physical attractiveness plays a larger role in men's assessment of a woman than male physical attractiveness does for women
Subjects: 
BMI
height
wages
earnings
marriage market
JEL: 
D1
J1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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