Econometrica · 2019 · Zvi Eckstein、Michael P. Keane、Osnat Lifshitz
中文摘要
比较美国1935年和1975年出生队列，已婚女性工资的增速是已婚男性的两倍，而已婚女性与单身女性之间的工资差距由负转正。已婚女性的就业率也大幅上升，而其他群体的就业率则保持相当稳定。为了更好地理解这些多样的模式，我们构建了一个生命周期模型，纳入了关于教育、就业、婚姻/离婚和生育的个人与家庭决策。该模型对工资和就业模式，以及教育、婚姻/离婚率和生育的变化提供了极佳的拟合。我们假设偏好固定，但允许四种外生变化因素：(i) 母亲的教育、健康和税收/转移支付；(ii) 婚姻市场机会与离婚成本；(iii) 工资结构与工作邀约；(iv) 避孕技术。我们量化了每种因素对跨队列变化的贡献。我们发现因素是推动已婚女性相对工资上升的最重要力量，但所有四种因素对于解释过去50年间发生的诸多社会经济变化均十分重要。最后，我们使用该模型模拟了从联合征税向个人征税的转变。在收入中性的模拟中，我们预测这将使已婚女性的就业率增加9%，婚姻率增加8.1%。
Abstract
Comparing the 1935 and 1975 U.S. birth cohorts, wages of married women grew twice as fast as for married men, and the wage gap between married and single women turned from negative to positive. The employment rate of married women also increased sharply, while that of other groups remained quite stable. To better understand these diverse patterns, we develop a life-cycle model incorporating individual and household decisions about education, employment, marriage/divorce, and fertility. The model provides an excellent fit to wage and employment patterns, along with changes in education, marriage/divorce rates, and fertility. We assume fixed preferences, but allow for four exogenously changing factors: (i) mother's education, health, and taxes/transfers; (ii) marriage market opportunities and divorce costs; (iii) the wage structure and job offers; (iv) contraception technology. We quantify how each factor contributed to changes across cohorts. We find that factor (iii) was the most important force driving the increase in relative wages of married women, but that all four factors are important for explaining the many socio-economic changes that occurred in the past 50 years. Finally, we use the model to simulate a shift from joint to individual taxation. In a revenue-neutral simulation, we predict this would increase employment of married women by 9% and the marriage rate by 8.1%.