Career choice, marriage-timing, and the attraction of unequals
By: by Sylvain Dessy, Habiba Djebbari.
Contributors: Djebbari, Habiba
Series: Discussion paper ;; no. 1561; Discussion paper (Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit : Online) ;; no. 1561
Publisher: IZA
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Bonn, Germany
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Occupational mobility.; Job satisfaction.; Man-woman relationships.; Marriage.; Vocational guidance.; Fertility, Human.
Description: "Both men and women wish to have a family and a rewarding career. In this paper, we show that the under-representation of women in high-powered professions may reflect a coordination failure in young women's marriage-timing decisions. Since investing in a high-powered career imposes time strain, it precludes early participation in the marriage market. Delayed participation in the marriage market has a higher cost for women than for men because women have shorter fecundity horizons. Marriage prospects of high-powered women depend on the marriage-timing decisions of younger women. Under these assumptions, we show that women's marriage-timing decisions exhibit strategic complementarities. Coordination failures in women's marriage-timing decisions lead to persisting gender differences in career choices. Yet, differential fecundity is only necessary, but not sufficient to obtain gender inequality in high-powered professions. We discuss social changes that solve the coordination failure while achieving a Pareto-improvement in the society at large"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.
Notes: Also available in print.
Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 4/13/2005.
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.