Changes in Couples' Earnings Following Parenthood and Trends in Family Earnings Inequality.

ABSTRACT: The growing economic similarity of spouses has contributed to rising income inequality across households. Explanations have typically centered on assortative mating, but recent work has argued that changes in women's employment and spouses' division of paid work have played a more important role. We expand this work to consider the critical turning point of parenthood in shaping couples' division of employment and earnings. Drawing on three U.S. nationally representative surveys, we examine the role of parenthood in spouses' earnings correlations between 1968 and 2015. We examine the extent to which changes in spouses' earnings correlations are due to (1) changes upon entry into marriage (assortative mating), (2) changes between marriage and parenthood, (3) changes following parenthood, an

SUBMITTER: Gonalons-Pons P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8276622 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature