Male Investment in Schooling with Frictional Labour and Marriage Markets

This chapter reviews models of marriage, with special emphasis on how the sex ratio can help explain outcomes such as marriage formation, the intramarriage distribution of consumption goods, labor supply, savings, type of relationship, divorce, and intermarriage. Economic models of marriage pioneered by Gary Becker are reviewed in the first section and then extended in the next section to incorporate the labor market for the work-in-household approach of Grossbard. The following section discusses challenges in identifying exogenous variation in sex ratios and presents empirical evidence on the impact of sex ratios on labor supply, consumption, savings, and several other outcomes.

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Seminal fluid and accessory male investment in sperm competition

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2020.0068 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 375 (1813) ◽

pp. 20200068

Author(s):

Steven A. Ramm

Keyword(s):

Sperm Competition ◽

Seminal Fluid ◽

Complex Mixture ◽

Internal Fertilization ◽

Animal Evolution ◽

Male Investment ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Fluid Production ◽

Alternative Routes ◽

Paternity Success

Sperm production and allocation strategies have been a central concern of sperm competition research for the past 50 years. But during the ‘sexual cascade’ there may be strong selection for alternative routes to maximizing male fitness. Especially with the evolution of internal fertilization, a common and by now well-studied example is the accessory ejaculate investment represented by seminal fluid, the complex mixture of proteins, peptides and other components transferred to females together with sperm. How seminal fluid investment should covary with sperm investment probably depends on the mechanism of seminal fluid action. If seminal fluid components boost male paternity success by directly enhancing sperm function or use, we might often expect a positive correlation between the two forms of male investment, whereas trade-offs seem more likely if seminal fluid acts independently of sperm. This is largely borne out by a broad taxonomic survey to establish the prevailing patterns of seminal fluid production and allocation during animal evolution, in light of which I discuss the gaps that remain in our understanding of this key ejaculate component and its relationship to sperm investment, before outlining promising approaches for examining seminal fluid-mediated sperm competitiveness in the post-genomic era. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Fifty years of sperm competition’.

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Natural shocks and marriage markets: Fluctuations in mehr and dowry in Muslim marriages

European Economic Review ◽

10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103510 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 128 ◽

pp. 103510

Author(s):

Shyamal Chowdhury ◽

Debdulal Mallick ◽

Prabal Roy Chowdhury

Keyword(s):

Marriage Markets

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Sweet savage love: FA, BO, and SES in the EEA

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x0042337x ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 604-605

Author(s):

Edward H. Hagen ◽

Nicole Hess

Keyword(s):

Fluctuating Asymmetry ◽

Evolutionary Perspective ◽

Mate Value ◽

Good Case ◽

Male Investment ◽

Financial Variables ◽

Male Mate ◽

Human Mating

Proxies of mate value must be evolutionarily salient. Gangestad & Simpson (G&S) have made a good case that fluctuating asymmetry is an important proxy of male mate value that correlates well with genetic and developmental quality. The use of financial variables as proxies for male investment ability by Gangestad, Simpson, and virtually every other investigator of human mating in evolutionary perspective, is, however, more problematic.

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