Couples’ time together: complementarities in production versus complementarities in consumption

Economists have previously suggested that gains from marriage can be generated by complementarities in production (gains from specialization and exchange) or by complementarities in consumption (gains from joint consumption of household public goods and joint time consumption). This paper uses the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) from 2003 to 2011 to test whether couples that engage in less specialization (are more similar in hours of market work) spend more time together. We find that among married couples without young children, those with a greater difference in weekly hours of work between husband and wife spend less time together on non-working weekend days. Importantly, we find that this relationship is quite symmetric between couples in which the husband works greater hours and couples in which the wife works greater hours. We do not find evidence of a relationship between specialization and couple time together among couples with young children.     

Determinants of voluntary executive stock option disclosure in Brazil

This study investigates whether the governance attributes of Brazilian companies are associated with voluntary executive stock option (ESO) disclosure. Results show that Brazilian companies voluntarily disclose very little about their ESO plans, and that board size, presence of a compensation committee, and auditing by a Big 4 firm are significantly related to the degree of voluntary ESO disclosure. We also show that family-controlled companies in Brazil are associated with low voluntary ESO disclosure. Results are robust to a number of specification tests, dependent and explanatory variable measurements, and sample composition. This study has professional and regulatory implications for Brazil and other emerging capital markets. The results underscore the need for stricter rules for executive compensation reporting in Brazil, and they invite policy makers and regulators in emerging markets to consider the effects of company-level governance factors on disclosure incentives.     

Spousal Mobility and Earnings

An important finding in the literature on migration has been that the earnings of married women typically decrease with a move, while the earnings of married men often increase with a move, suggesting that married women are more likely to act as the “trailing spouse.” This article considers a related but largely unexplored question: what is the effect of having an occupation that is associated with frequent migration on the migration decisions of a household and on the earnings of the spouse? Further, how do these effects differ between men and women? The Public Use Microdata Sample from the 2000 U.S. decennial census is used to calculate migration rates by occupation and education. The analysis estimates the effects of these occupational mobility measures on the migration of couples and the earnings of married individuals. I find that migration rates in both the husband’s and wife’s occupations affect the household migration decision, but mobility in the husband’s occupation matters considerably more. For couples in which the husband has a college degree (regardless of the wife’s educational level), a husband’s mobility has a large, significant negative effect on his wife’s earnings, whereas a wife’s mobility has no effect on her husband’s earnings. This negative effect does not exist for college-educated wives married to non-college-educated husbands.In the substantial literature on the relationship between migration and earnings, an important finding has been that the earnings of married women typically decrease with a move, while the earnings of married men often increase with a move. This is consistent with the notion that married women are more likely to act as the “trailing spouse” or to be a “tied mover.” This article considers a related but largely unexplored question: what is the effect of having an occupation that is associated with frequent migration on the migration decisions of a household as well as on the earnings of the spouse? And how do these effects differ between men and women?There are three reasons to move beyond the previous analysis of household moves to studying the effect of occupational mobility on migration and earnings. First, the analysis of changes in employment and earnings of movers is only part of a broader discovery concerning the extent to which the earnings of husbands and wives are affected by the ability to move to or stay in optimal locations. Second, the existing literature relies on the comparison of movers to nonmovers. Even longitudinal comparisons will not completely eliminate the bias in this comparison because movers likely differ in their earnings growth, not just the level of premigration earnings. Third, the methods used in the literature often do not adequately adjust for occupational differences between men and women, so it is difficult to know whether the current findings in the literature are the result of differences in jobs held by men and women, or rather are the result of differences in influence on location decisions. The question pursued in this article is, controlling for an individual’s own occupation and the earnings potential in that occupation, how does the migration rate in a spouse’s occupation affect one’s own labor market outcomes?This article uses the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 2000 U.S. decennial census to calculate mobility measures by occupation and education class. Mobility is measured by the fraction of workers who, in the past five years, have either (a) changed metropolitan area or (b) if in a nonmetropolitan area, changed Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA).¹ Using the sample of white, non-Hispanic married couples between the ages of 25 and 55 in the 2000 census, I perform migration and earnings analyses separately for four groups of couples: both have college degrees (“power couples”), only the husband has a college degree, only the wife has a college degree; and neither has a college degree.Results indicate that the mobility rates in both the husband’s and wife’s occupation affect the household migration decision, but mobility in the husband’s occupation matters considerably more. Comparison analysis for never-married individuals indicates that among individuals with college degrees, never-married men and women are equally responsive to occupation mobility in their migration behavior.The earnings analysis uses occupation fixed-effects and average wage in occupation-education class to control for substantial heterogeneity in earnings potential. For couples in which the husband has a college degree, the wife’s mobility has no effect on the husband’s earnings, regardless of the wife’s education. However, the husband’s mobility has a large, significant negative effect on the wife’s earnings. This negative effect does not exist for couples in which only the wife has a college degree.     

The marital satisfaction of differently aged couples

We investigate how the marital age gap affects the evolution of marital satisfaction over the duration of marriage using household panel data from Australia. We find that men tend to be more satisfied with younger wives and less satisfied with older wives. Interestingly, women likewise tend to be more satisfied with younger husbands and less satisfied with older husbands. Marital satisfaction declines with marital duration for both men and women in differently aged couples relative to those in similarly aged couples. These relative declines erase the initial higher levels of marital satisfaction experienced by men married to younger wives and women married to younger husbands within 6 to 10 years of marriage. A possible mechanism is that differently aged couples are less resilient to negative shocks compared to similarly aged couples, which we find some supportive evidence for.     

Same-occupation spouses: preferences or search costs?

Married individuals match with spouses who share their occupation more frequently than should happen by chance if marriage markets are large frictionless search markets covering a particular geographic area. This suggests that either there is a preference for same-occupation matches or that search costs are lower within occupation. This paper uses 2008–2015 data from the American Community Survey to analyze same-occupation matching among a sample of recently married couples. Our empirical strategy compares the difference in wages between same-occupation husbands and different-occupation husbands across occupations with different percent male workers. Under a preference explanation, this difference should become less negative as the share of males in the occupation increases. Under a search cost explanation, this difference should become more negative as the share of males increases. Our results are consistent with the search cost explanation. Furthermore, using an occupation-specific index of workplace communication, we demonstrate that the results are most consistent with the search cost mechanism for occupations with a greater degree of workplace communication. Finally, we show that matching on field of degree for couples in which both spouses have a college degree is also consistent with the search cost explanation.