Assortative Mating and Earnings Inequality in France

• Author: Nicolas Frémeaux,Arnaud Lefranc
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12450
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020

© 2019 International Association for Research in Income and Wealth

757

ASSORTATIVE MATING AND EARNINGS INEQUALITY IN FRANCE*

by Nicolas Frémeaux

LEMMA—Université Paris 2

AND

arNaud leFraNc

THEMA—Université de Cergy-Pontoise

This paper analyzes assortative mating and its contribution to inequality in France. We first provide

descriptive evidence on the statistical association in several socio-economic attributes of partners.

Second, we assess the contribution of assortative mating to earnings inequality between couples. We

provide a new method for assessing the contribution of assortative mating to inequality in couple’s

potential earnings, that accounts for selection bias arising from labor force participation. Our results

indicate a strong degree of assortative mating in France. The correlation in earnings is around 0.17 for

annual earnings, around 0.35 for full-time equivalent earnings and up to 0.49 when using multi-year

average earnings. Assortative mating tends to increase inequality among couples. For annual earnings,

the effect accounts for 3 to 9 percent of measured inequality. The effect of assortative mating on house-

hold potential earnings is much larger and amounts to 10 to 20 percent for observed inequality.

JEL Codes: J12, J22, D31

Keywords: assortative mating, earnings, France, inequality, labor supply

1. iNtroductioN

An abundant sociological literature has provided evidence of a high correla-

tion of educational and social attributes within couples, in most developed coun-

tries.1 In comparison, available evidence on the extent of assortative mating

according to economic characteristics is much more limited. Investigating the

degree of homogamy in modern societies is however crucial for at least three rea-

sons. First, the propensity to mate into homogenous couples might amplify exist-

ing earnings inequality between individuals. Although several papers have recently

investigated this issue,2 uncertainty remains on the contribution of assortative

mating to earnings inequality, as evidence is largely confined to the US case and

1See e.g. Mare (1991), Blossfeld and Timm (2003), Goux and Maurin (2003), Schwartz and Mare

(2005), Kalmijn (1991), Uunk etal. (1996).

2See in particular Karoly and Burtless (1995), Cancian and Reed (1998), Burtless (1999), Schwartz

(2010), Eika etal. (2017), Greenwood etal. (2014), Harmenberg (2014), Pestel (2017).

Note: This research was supported by the FAMINEQ project (ANR-17-CE41-0007). It was devel-

oped under the auspices of the Labex MME-DII Center of Excellence (grant ANR11-LBX-0023-01),

the support of which is gratefully acknowledged.

*Correspondence to: Arnaud Lefranc, THEMA—Université de Cergy-Pontoise, 33, boulevard du

Port - 95011 Cergy-Pontoise cedex, France (arnaud.lefranc@u-cergy.fr).

Review of Income and Wealth

Series 66, Number 4, December 2020

DOI: 10.1111/roiw.12450

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Review of Income and Wealth, Series 66, Number 4, December 2020

758

© 2019 International Association for Research in Income and Wealth

dependent on methodological choices. Second, as discussed in Becker (1973) and

Zhang and Liu (2003), observed assortative mating patterns might shed light on

the nature of intra-household production and allocation decisions. Lastly, to the

extent that it shapes household resources, assortative mating will largely condition

child upbringing decisions and might contribute to the intergenerational transmis-

sion of inequality (e.g. Becker and Tomes, 1979; Black and Devereux, 2011).

In this paper, we study economic assortative mating in France. Our contri-

bution is threefold. We first provide comparable evidence on assortative mating

among French couples for various attributes (occupation, education, earnings),

as usually investigated in the literature. Second, we bring together in one paper

several methodological issues that have been covered separately in previous

papers. Specifically, in order to account for endogenous labor supply, we exam-

ine the association within couples in individual potential earnings, measured by

full-time equivalent earnings (Hyslop, 2001). Moreover, we account for potential

biases in the estimation of assortative mating arising from sample-selection into

the labor force (Shaw, 1989). Third, we assess the contribution of assortative mat-

ing to inequality between couples, in France, in both observed annual earnings and

potential earnings.

Several recent papers have examined the statistical association between male

and female labor earnings within couples.3 Available evidence for the United States

points to a sizable correlation, of up to 20 percent (e.g. Burtless, 1999; Schwartz,

2010). Apart from the US case, evidence for other countries is rather sparse,

although papers have examined several European societies: Sweden (Nakosteen

et al., 2004), Germany (Pestel, 2017; Eika et al., 2017), the United Kingdom,

Norway and Denmark (Eika etal., 2017), and Switzerland (Ravazzini etal., 2017).

The present paper contributes to the growing evidence on the effect of assortative

mating by looking at the French case.

Existing studies suffer from several empirical limitations. First, estimates are

generally based on cross sectional data in which earnings are only observed on

a single year. However, annual earnings incorporate sizable measurement errors

and transitory shocks. If such errors and shocks are poorly correlated between

partners, these components will lead to underestimate the association in partners’

long-term earnings. In this paper, we exploit panel data to compute average earn-

ings over multiple years in order to address this issue.

Second, most papers have focused on the statistical association in annual earn-

ings. This is of course a relevant measure in its own right. However annual earn-

ings reflect both individual productivity characteristics and endogenous joint labor

supply decisions taken within the couple. An important concern, in this respect, is

that a sizable share of women in couples report zero earnings as they do not par-

ticipate in the labor force. The confounding effect of labor supply decisions might

then jeopardize the assessment of the degree of assortative mating in core individ-

ual attributes. In this paper, this issue is addressed by also analyzing the statistical

association in potential earnings within couples, defined by the individual full-time

3Correlation in other economic dimensions such as individual preferences has been much less ana-

lyzed. Arrondel and Fremeaux (2016), Dohmen etal. (2012) and Kimball etal. (2009) are some of the

few exceptions.