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Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status
- Journal of Human Resources
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Volume 46, Number 3, Summer 2011
- pp. 482-517
- 10.1353/jhr.2011.0021
- Article
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This paper investigates the effect of relative income on marriage. Accounting flexibly for absolute income, the ratio between a man's income and a local reference group median is a strong predictor of marital status, but only for low-income men. Relative income affects marriage even among those living with a partner. A 10 percent higher reference group income is associated with a 2 percent reduction in marriage. We propose an identity model to explain the results.