The Dynamic Economics of Family Formation in Historical Context: Generation Turnover and the Effects of Women’s Earning Power on Marriage

C. Soledad Espinoza, Johns Hopkins University

In the U.S., the percent of never married women by age 35 doubled from the early 1940s to the late 1960s. During these years, there was a major shift in labor roles by gender due to the mass entry of women into the labor market. Using longitudinal data from mingled survey and administrative sources, this study provides a micro-level gender analysis of the relationship between earning power and first marriage by comparing three U.S. generations—the Lucky Few generation (born 1930 to 1944), the Baby Boomer generation (born 1945 to 1964), and Generation X (born 1965 to 1969). The findings show that in Generation X there was a qualitative shift in the economic basis of the marital decision by gender. The positive effect of earning power in the probability of first marriage for college-educated women becomes more pronounced and the pattern of the marriage advantage by education level trends toward gender-convergence.