On the emergence of toyboys
Subtitle: equilibrium matching with ageing and uncertain careers
By: by Melvyn Coles, Marco Francesconi.
Contributors: Francesconi, Marco.
Series: Discussion paper -- no. 2612; Discussion paper (Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit : Online) -- no. 2612
Publisher: IZA
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Bonn, Germany
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Married people -- United States.; Married people -- Great Britain.; Age distribution (Demography) -- United States.; Age distribution (Demography) -- Great Britain.
Description: "Toyboy marriages (where the female partner is at least 5 years older than her male partner) have grown threefold since the 1970s in the United States and Britain. This paper examines this phenomenon using an equilibrium search framework in which becoming successful in the labour market takes time and fitness decays with age. Our framework hinges on contract incompleteness in the marriage market and the assumption that the marginal gain to marrying someone rich is greatest for someone poor. With this structure we can explain why successful (older) types might marry fitter (younger) and less successful types. We show that toyboy marriages arise in equilibrium only when men and women have comparable labour market opportunities. U.S. and British data confirm this indicating that the probability that a woman is married to a toyboy increases by about 45 percent if, relative to her partner's, she is more educated and in a better paid job"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 4/25/2007.

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