Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/74207 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
Nota di Lavoro No. 133.2006
Publisher: 
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Milano
Abstract: 
This paper further explores the role of sex ratios on spouses’ bargaining power, by focusing on educational attainment in order to capture the qualitative aspect of mate availability. Using Census and Current Population Survey data for U.S. metropolitan areas in year 2000, a quality sex ratio is constructed by education brackets to test the effect on the intra-household bargaining power of couples in the corresponding education bracket. We argue that a relative shortage of suitably educated women in the spouse’s potential marriage market increases wives’ bargaining power in the household while it lowers their husbands’. Additionally, we test the prediction that this bargaining power effect is greater as the assortative mating order by education increases. We consider a collective labor supply household model, in which each spouse’s labor supply is negatively related to their level of bargaining power. We find that higher relative shortage of comparably educated women in the couple’s metropolitan area reduces wives’ labor supply and increases their husbands’. Also, the labor supply impact is stronger for couples in higher education groups. No such effects are found for unmarried individuals, which is consistent with bargaining theory.
Subjects: 
Education
Intra-Household Bargaining Power
Labor Supply
JEL: 
D12
J12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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