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February 14, 2006
Old but interesting
Landsburg (from the last article) has an amazing piece from 2000 that discussed the economics of marriage.
In the year following a divorce, women's living standards fall by 27 percent while men's living standards rise by 10 percent....there's a good reason, rooted in both economics and biology, why we should have expected this conclusion all along. A 30-year-old woman who wants a family is getting close to the point where she has to choose the best of her available suitors. A 30-year-old man can always choose to wait another five or 10 years till someone better comes along. In general, the longer you spend searching for something—be it a car, a house, or a life partner—the happier you're going to be with the one you end up with. So—again, with myriad exceptions—a woman's optimal strategy is to settle for an imperfect mate and then try to change him. A man's optimal strategy is to search until he finds someone close to perfect. It's therefore no surprise that women, more often than men, should end up regretting their choices.
But why do men and women get married at so similar an age if this is true?
Men get married on average at 25, women at 23, 5 years before precipitous drop in fertility among women. It could be that slope of the demand curve for marriage (for men) is steeper than the supply curve for women. This results in a low equilibrium price to men for getting married.
As Landsburg suggests, Women know that they aren't getting any younger, and since desirability declines and fertility problems mount with age, are inclined take a lower price to get married earlier. This suggest a flat supply curve. Men could search longer, so their demand curve is steeper. However, the women's curve is so steep that men can settle, they too would rather be getting the benefits of marriage sooner, so for the right price, they too will settle.
My guess it would look something like this:
Posted by OneEyedMan at February 14, 2006 10:15 AM
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