Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/323538 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Citation: 
[Journal:] Review of Economics of the Household [ISSN:] 1573-7152 [Volume:] 23 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] Springer US [Place:] New York, NY [Year:] 2025 [Pages:] 707-735
Publisher: 
Springer US, New York, NY
Abstract: 
Despite the recent findings on the inequality-increasing effect of homogeneous marriages, the growing body of literature on ‘the super-rich’, has missed out on illuminating contemporary global wealth inequality levels from a marital choice perspective. Not much is known about family formation at the top of the wealth distribution. By combining Forbes billionaires rich list data and billionaires’ Wikipedia articles with qualitative data, the paper presents a unique dataset capturing all US American billionaires ( n  = 948) and their spouses. The results suggest deeply ingrained traditional role allocations in billionaire couples. Female billionaires appear to be more likely to have a partner in the same upper-class fraction than male billionaires, who appear to be more liberal regarding their spouses’ class positions. By shedding light on the unique marriage demographics of the super-rich, the paper supports the importance of dynasty-making family strategies and social closure for understanding the economic elites of our times.
Subjects: 
Billionaires
Homogamy
Gender
Wealth
Inequality
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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