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In this paper, we describe mating patterns in the USA from 1964 to 2017 and measure the impact of changes in marital preferences on between-household income inequality. We rely on the recent literature on the econometrics of matching models to estimate complementarity parameters of the household production function. Our structural approach allows us to measure sorting along multiple dimensions and to effectively disentangle changes in marital preferences and in demographics, addressing concerns that affect results from existing literature. We answer the following questions: Has assortativeness increased over time? Along which dimensions? To what extent can the shifts in marital preferences explain inequality trends? We find that, after controlling for other observables, assortative mating in education has become stronger. Moreover, if mating patterns had not changed since 1971, the 2017 Gini coefficient between married households would be 6% lower. We conclude that about 25% of the increase in between-household inequality is due to changes in marital preferences. Increased assortativeness in education positively contributes to the rise in inequality, but only modestly.

In this paper, we extend Gary Becker’s empirical analysis of the marriage market to same-sex couples. We build an equilibrium model of the same-sex marriage market that allows for straightforward identification of the gains of marriage. We estimate the model with 2008–12 American Community Survey data on California and find that positive assortative mating is weaker for same-sex couples than for different-sex couples with respect to age and race. Positive assortative mating on education is stronger among female same-sex couples but comparable for male same-sex and different-sex couples. As regards labor market outcomes, our results suggest that specialization within the household mainly applies to different-sex couples.

Social scientists have long been interested in marital homogamy and its relationship with inequality. However, measuring homogamy is not straightforward, particularly when one is interested in assessing marital sorting based on multiple traits. In this paper, we argue that Separate Extreme Value (SEV) models not only generate a matching function with several desirable theoretical properties, but they are also suited for the study of multidimensional sorting. Specifically, we use rich small-scale survey data to examine sorting among parents of school-age children in Naples. We show that homogamy is pervasive; not only do men and women sort by age, education, and physical characteristics, but they also look for partners that share similar health-related behavior and risk attitude. However, we also show that these marital patterns are well explained by a low number of dimensions, the most important being age cohort and human capital. In particular, human capital relates to various \"outcomes\" of the post-matching relationship. Children of parents with a high human capital endowment perform better at school, although they report lower levels of subjective well-being and of perceived quality of relationship with their mothers.

In this paper, we extend Gary Becker's empirical analysis of the marriage market to same-sex couples. Becker's theory rationalizes the well-known phenomenon of homogamy among different-sex couples: individuals mate with their likes because many characteristics, such as education, consumption behaviour, desire to nurture children, religion, etc., exhibit strong complementarities in the household production function. However, because of asymmetries in the distributions of male and female characteristics, men and women may need to marry \"up\" or \"down\" according to the relative shortage of their characteristics among the populations of men and women. Yet, among same-sex couples, this limitation does not exist as partners are drawn from the same population, and thus the theory of assortative mating would boldly predict that individuals will choose a partner with nearly identical characteristics. Empirical evidence suggests a very different picture: a robust stylized fact is that the correlation of the characteristics is in fact weaker among same-sex couples. In this paper, we build an equilibrium model of same-sex marriage market which allows for straightforward identification of the gains to marriage. We estimate the model with 2008-2012 ACS data on California and show that positive assortative mating is weaker for homosexuals than for heterosexuals with respect to age and race. Our results suggest that positive assortative mating with respect to education is stronger among lesbians, and not significantly different when comparing gay men and married different-sex couples. As regards labor market outcomes, such as hourly wages and working hours, we find some indications that the process of specialization within the household mainly applies to different-sex couples.

The American family underwent important transformations in the last decades. Mating patterns changed, college graduates and high earners marry with each other more and more frequently. On the other hand, those at the bottom of the wage and schooling distributions have become more and more likely to stay single, and, once married or cohabiting, more likely to break up. This increasing gap in family achievements has important implications for both income and consumption inequalities, as well as intergenerational mobility. In this paper, I aim to quantify the importance of the marriage market as a channel of inequality, both at household and individual level. I build on the matching literature and set up a model of marriage, divorce and remarriage along the life- cycle in order to reproduce the afore-mentioned aggregate trends and understand the underlying drivers. In the model, risk-averse agents get married in order to benefit from joint public good expenditure, but economic gains from marriage are volatile due to labor market shocks. I show that the underlying structure of preferences and of the meeting technology are identified with matched data on the distribution of couples' and singles' traits, jointly with data on newlyweds and divorcees. I propose an estimation method based on indirect inference and estimate the model with PSID data. Preliminary findings suggest that differences in the productivity of household public good expenditure appear as a key driving force behind differentials in the odds of staying single, mating patterns, and, ultimately, household income inequality.

Previous genetic studies of human assortative mating have primarily focused on searching for its genomic footprint but have revealed limited insights into its biological and social mechanisms. Combining insights from the economics of the marriage market with advanced tools in statistical genetics, we perform the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) on a latent index for partner choice. Using 206,617 individuals from four global cohorts, we uncover phenotypic characteristics and social processes underlying assortative mating. We identify a broadly robust genetic component of the partner choice index between sexes and several countries and identify its genetic correlates. We also provide solutions to reduce assortative mating-driven biases in genetic studies of complex traits by conditioning GWAS summary statistics on the genetic associations with the latent partner choice index.

In this paper, we extend Gary Becker's empirical analysis of the marriage market to same-sex couples. Becker's theory rationalizes the well-known phenomenon of homogamy among different-sex couples: individuals mate with their likes because many characteristics, such as education, consumption behaviour, desire to nurture children, religion, etc., exhibit strong complementarities in the household production function. However, because of asymmetries in the distributions of male and female characteristics, men and women may need to marry \"up\" or \"down\" according to the relative shortage of their characteristics among the populations of men and women. Yet, among same-sex couples, this limitation does not exist as partners are drawn from the same population, and thus the theory of assortative mating would boldly predict that individuals will choose a partner with nearly identical characteristics. Empirical evidence suggests a very different picture: a robust stylized fact is that the correlation of the characteristics is in fact weaker among same-sex couples. In this paper, we build an equilibrium model of same-sex marriage market which allows for straightforward identification of the gains to marriage. We estimate the model with 2008-2012 ACS data on California and show that positive assortative mating is weaker for homosexuals than for heterosexuals with respect to age and race. Our results suggest that positive assortative mating with respect to education is stronger among lesbians, and not significantly different when comparing gay men and married different-sex couples. As regards labor market outcomes, such as hourly wages and working hours, we find some indications that the process of specialization within the household mainly applies to different-sex couples.

Social scientists have long been interested in marital homogamy and its relationship with inequality. Yet, measuring homogamy is not straightforward, particularly when we are interested in studying sorting on multiple traits. In this paper, we compare different statistical methods that have been used in the demographic, sociological and economic literature. We show that Separate Extreme Value (SEV) models not only generate a matching function with several desirable theoretical properties, but they are also particularly suited for the study of multidimensional sorting. We use small-scale survey data to study sorting among parents of children attending schools in Naples. Our findings show that homogamy is pervasive: not only men and women sort on age, education, height and physical characteristics, but they also look for partners that share similar health-related behavioral traits and risk attitude. We also show that marital patterns are well explained by a low number of dimensions, the most important being human capital. Moreover, children of parents with a high human capital endowment perform better at school, although they report lower levels of subjective well-being and perceived quality of relationship with their parents.

Biallelic mutations in ECHS1, encoding the mitochondrial enoyl‐CoA hydratase, have been associated with mitochondrial encephalopathies with basal ganglia involvement. Here, we describe a novel clinical presentation consisting of dystonia‐ataxia syndrome with hearing loss and a peculiar torsional nystagmus observed in two adult siblings. The presence of a 0.9‐ppm peak at MR spectroscopy analysis suggested the accumulation of branched‐chain amino acids. Exome sequencing in index probands identified two ECHS1 mutations, one of which was novel (p.V82L). ECHS1 protein levels and residual activities were reduced in patients’ fibroblasts. This paper expands the phenotypic spectrum observed in patients with impaired valine catabolism.