“WHY NOT SETTLE DOWN ALREADY?” A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE DELAY IN MARRIAGE
研究了美国过去40年收入波动上升如何解释婚姻延迟现象，发现收入波动解释了约20%的婚姻推迟，且效果强于其他机制。
A striking change in American society in the last 40 years has been the decline and delay in marriage. The fraction of young adults who have never been married increased significantly between 1970 and 2000. Idiosyncratic labor income volatility also rose. We establish a quantitatively important link between these facts. If marriage involves consumption commitments, then a rise in income volatility delays marriage. We quantitatively assess this hypothesis vis‐à‐vis others in the literature. Increased volatility accounts for about 20% of the observed delay in marriage and is strong relative to other mechanisms.