scholarly journals The Impact of Educational Assortative Mating on Income Inequality: Evidence from Argentina

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 116-127
Author(s):  
Fernando Antonio Ignacio González ◽  
◽  
Juan Antonio Dip ◽  

This paper seeks to quantify the impact of educational assortative mating on income inequality among households in Argentina. We use microdata from two household surveys conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Census: The Permanent Household Survey and the National Survey of Risk Factors. We construct contingency tables and perform a regression analysis to study the existence of educational assortative mating. We also present counterfactual simulations of random re-matching of observations. The results show that a sizeable proportion of couples are educationally homogamous (45%). Comparing the Gini coefficients calculated in the real matching and the simulated scenarios, we observe a reduction of up to 4 points. Thus, the educational assortative mating represents a relevant dimension to explain income inequality. Our results recommend considering this matching pattern when defining optimal income taxes; this is, if there is a high positive covariance between the income of both members of the couple, it seems appropriate, from a redistributive point of view, to define income taxes at the household level and not at the individual level (as is currently the case in most countries, including Argentina).

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110119
Author(s):  
Matthew Polacko

Previous research into the relationship between income inequality and turnout inequality has produced mixed results, as consensus is lacking whether inequality reduces turnout for all income groups, low-income earners, or no one. Therefore, this paper builds on this literature by introducing supply-side logic, through the first individual-level test of the impact that income inequality (moderated by policy manifesto positions) has on turnout. It does so through multilevel logistic regressions utilizing mixed effects, on a sample of 30 advanced democracies in 102 elections from 1996 to 2016. It finds that higher levels of income inequality significantly reduce turnout and widen the turnout gap between rich and poor. However, it also finds that when party systems are more polarized, low-income earners are mobilized the greatest extent coupled with higher inequality, resulting in a significantly reduced income gap in turnout. The findings magnify the negative impacts income inequality can exert on political behavior and contribute to the study of policy offerings as a key moderating mechanism in the relationship.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962199349
Author(s):  
Manh-Hung Nguyen ◽  
Dung P Le ◽  
Thang T Vo

This article investigates the impact of flood risk on vulnerability and welfare at the household level in Vietnam. The analytical sample is taken from a household survey conducted in a north central Vietnam community through a three-stage stratified random sampling method. The propensity score matching approach is employed to compare various welfare indicators between flooded and non-flooded households. This study finds that flooding results in significant income losses and imposes higher costs of living, especially housing costs. The two types of households are vulnerable, implying that other natural disasters or socio-economic disadvantages may have adverse effects on households’ livelihoods. The insignificant effect of floods on vulnerability indicates that the flooded households can cope with floods to some extent. However, contrary to family support, formal coping strategies are insufficient or ineffective at reducing household vulnerability to floods.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0192513X2098449
Author(s):  
Johannes Stauder ◽  
Tom Kossow

This study aims to determine to what extent the opportunities and restrictions of the partner market influence educational assortative mating. It also analyzes the interplay between the opportunity structure and preferences. Matching district-based partner market indicators to heterosexual couples when they move in together based on the German Socio-Economic Panel, we find strong effects of the opportunity structure on educational homogamy. The results further imply that the density of the supply of potential partners is more important for educational assortative mating than imbalanced supply and competition. While the impact of partner market imbalances on assortative mating is a mere effect of the opportunity structure, the effects of the partner market density of relevant and available partners in space weakly imply that homophile and maximization preferences are simultaneously at work.


2019 ◽  
Vol 127 (6) ◽  
pp. 2795-2835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lasse Eika ◽  
Magne Mogstad ◽  
Basit Zafar

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Avril Macfarlane

<p>There is a growing concern internationally about levels of income inequality, and the negative effect this has on the functioning of societies both in terms of productivity and social harmony. An unexpected contributor to inequality is assortative mating - the phenomenon of “like marrying like”. Educational attainment is highly correlated with income; when two highly educated people partner and form a household they are more likely to appear at the top of the household income distribution, while couples with only primary or incomplete secondary education appear at the bottom. Therefore the greater the propensity to mate assortatively the more unequal the distribution of household income becomes.   I ask two questions of the relationship between educational assortative mating and household income inequality. Firstly, how do countries (in Europe) differ in their degree of educational assortative mating? Secondly, what is the evidence that such differences are reflected in indicators of household income inequality?   My study differs from the prevailing approaches to this question by taking a geographical approach. Instead of comparing a single country over time and monitoring the correspondence between assortative mating and income inequality, I compare a wide range of countries, using a uniform instrument, at one point in time. In order to do so I draw on the unit records of 29 countries from the European Social Survey administered in 2012.   From these unit record data I have been able to identify two important patterns. Firstly, there is a clear presence of educational assortative mating in each country. However, the degree differs and it does so primarily as a reflection of the overall level of education in the country. Rising levels of education lower the returns for education, in turn making assortative mating comparatively less attractive. As a result, the level of assortative mating, compared to what would be expected under random conditions, is lower in highly educated nations. The lowered level of assortative mating in highly educated nations reduces the barriers to social mobility through marriage for those without university educations. Consequently, household income inequality is seen to be intrinsically related to assortative mating, although the outcomes can be mitigated by redistribution policies.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Avril Macfarlane

<p>There is a growing concern internationally about levels of income inequality, and the negative effect this has on the functioning of societies both in terms of productivity and social harmony. An unexpected contributor to inequality is assortative mating - the phenomenon of “like marrying like”. Educational attainment is highly correlated with income; when two highly educated people partner and form a household they are more likely to appear at the top of the household income distribution, while couples with only primary or incomplete secondary education appear at the bottom. Therefore the greater the propensity to mate assortatively the more unequal the distribution of household income becomes.   I ask two questions of the relationship between educational assortative mating and household income inequality. Firstly, how do countries (in Europe) differ in their degree of educational assortative mating? Secondly, what is the evidence that such differences are reflected in indicators of household income inequality?   My study differs from the prevailing approaches to this question by taking a geographical approach. Instead of comparing a single country over time and monitoring the correspondence between assortative mating and income inequality, I compare a wide range of countries, using a uniform instrument, at one point in time. In order to do so I draw on the unit records of 29 countries from the European Social Survey administered in 2012.   From these unit record data I have been able to identify two important patterns. Firstly, there is a clear presence of educational assortative mating in each country. However, the degree differs and it does so primarily as a reflection of the overall level of education in the country. Rising levels of education lower the returns for education, in turn making assortative mating comparatively less attractive. As a result, the level of assortative mating, compared to what would be expected under random conditions, is lower in highly educated nations. The lowered level of assortative mating in highly educated nations reduces the barriers to social mobility through marriage for those without university educations. Consequently, household income inequality is seen to be intrinsically related to assortative mating, although the outcomes can be mitigated by redistribution policies.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (02) ◽  
pp. 1950008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudeshna Ghosh

This study explored the impact of income inequality, household energy consumption, government expenditure, and investment on carbon dioxide emissions at the household level over the period 1970–2015 in the United Kingdom. The study applied Clemente–Montanes–Reyes unit root test to identify structural break in the time series. Further, the cointegrating relationship of the time series observations was explored by applying the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) (linear) bounds test approach along with the nonlinear ARDL for making fruitful comparisons in the long-run relationship among the variables. The paper used Bayer–Hanck combined cointegration method for robustness test in the cointegrating methods. In addition, the causality analysis was explored using the Toda–Yamato (1995) method of Granger causality. The results confirmed the existence of cointegration among the variables.The estimated NARDL results show that in the long run the negative asymmetric impact of the income inequality is stronger than the positive impact. The paper concludes that there is an urgent need to reduce income inequality in the United Kingdom to improve equitable consumption of energy at the household level. Last the causality test shows that there exists unidirectional causality from inequality transmission to carbon emissions.


Demography ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 867-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Breen ◽  
Signe Hald Andersen

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