scholarly journals Trends in Earnings Inequality and Earnings Instability Among U.S. Couples: How Important is Assortative Matching?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmytro Hryshko ◽  
Chinhui Juhn ◽  
Kristin McCue
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Assortative Matching ◽  
Earnings Instability

scholarly journals A Quantitative Review of Marriage Markets: How Inequality is Remaking the American Family by Carbone and Cahn

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Cornelson ◽  
Aloysius Siow
Keyword(s):  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Assortative Matching ◽  
Marriage Markets ◽  
Quantitative Review ◽  
Marriage Rates ◽  
Educational Attainments ◽  
Wage Distributions ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Female Headed Households ◽  
Quantitative Impact

June Carbone and Naomi Cahn argue that growing earnings inequality and the increased educational attainment of women, relative to men, have led to declining marriage rates for less-educated women and an increase in positive assortative matching since the 1970s. These trends have negatively affected the welfare of children, as they increase the proportion of poor, single-female-headed households. Using data on marriage markets defined by state, race and time, and the Choo–Siow marriage matching function, this review provides a quantitative assessment of these claims. We show that changes in earnings inequality had a qualitatively consistent but modest quantitative impact on marriage rates and positive assortative matching. Neither changes in the wage distributions nor educational attainments can explain the large decline in marriage rates over this period. (JEL C78, D63, J12, J15, J16, J31)

scholarly journals The Impact of Macroeconomic Conditions on the Instability and Long-Run Inequality of Workers’ Earnings in Canada

2005 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles M. Beach ◽  
Ross Finnie ◽  
David Gray
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Unemployment Rate ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Gdp Growth ◽  
Macroeconomic Conditions ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Gdp Growth Rate ◽  
Earnings Instability ◽  
Rate Effects ◽  
The Impact

This paper examines the variability of workers’ earnings in Canada over the period 1982‑1997. Using a large panel of tax file data, we decompose total variation in earnings across workers and time into a long-run inequality component between workers and an average earnings instability component over time for workers. We find an increase in earnings variability between 1982‑89 and 1990‑97 that is largely confined to men and largely driven by widening long-run earnings inequality. Second, the pattern of unemployment rate and GDP growth rate effects on these variance components is not consistent with conventional explanations and is suggestive of an alternative paradigm of how economic growth over this period widens long-run earnings inequality. Third, when unemployment rate and GDP growth rate effects are considered jointly, macroeconomic improvement is found to reduce the overall variability of earnings as the reduction in earnings instability outweighs the widening of long-run earnings inequality.

scholarly journals The Rising Instability of U.S. Earnings

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gottschalk ◽  
Robert Moffitt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Family Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Earnings Instability ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Income Instability

The inequality of earnings and of family incomes in the United States has increased since the late 1970s. The large rise in earnings inequality between the 1970s and the 1990s could reflect either a rise in disparity of permanent incomes, a rise in earnings instability, or some portion of both. In this paper, we provide longitudinal measures that separate changes in income inequality into changes that permanently change income to new levels and those that only reflect transitory change. We refer to the latter as changes in “income instability” and discuss how the instability of individual earnings and family income in the United States has evolved— as whole as well as for different types of individuals and families—over the last quarter century. We consider alternative definitions of instability that have been proposed, and establish that all studies find that instability is considerably higher today than in the mid-1970s. This increase in instability is not a recent phenomenon. Earnings instability rose sharply in the late 1970s and early 1980s, then stabilized at these high levels through the recent period, although it may be increasing once again. We also discuss the factors that may be driving this increase in instability.

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