Assortative Mating and Inequality

Income inequality in the US has sharply increased over the last several decades. This is a well-documented fact (e.g. Gottschalk and Moffitt 1994, Katz and Autor 1999). The general public is also very interested in the issue. A recent USA TODAY/Pew Research Center poll shows that the majority of the population thinks “the economic system in the country unfairly favours the wealthy” and that the government should do “a lot to reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else.” Policymakers are aware of this as well. In his 2014 State of the Union Address, US president Barack Obama promised to tackle economic inequality “with or without Congress.” There may be several reasons for why inequality has been on the rise (for a survey, see Gordon and Dew-Becker 2008). But what about the effects of family formation on inequality?