Unobserved Endowments and Gender Differences in Marriage Matching
利用中国双胞胎调查数据，研究发现与高收入相关的遗传禀赋使男性更早结婚且配偶更年轻更高，而女性则更晚结婚且配偶年龄更大、教育收入更高，挑战了传统假设。
This study investigates the effects of unobserved earnings-related endowments on marital outcomes, focusing on potential gender differences. Using a less stringent, more plausible assumption that monozygotic twins share more similar endowments relative to dizygotic twins, we develop a novel identification strategy from the twins experiment. Using unique Chinese twins survey data, we find that men with genetic endowments related to higher earnings marry earlier and have younger, taller wives; such women marry later and have older husbands with higher education and income. Results cast doubt on the conventional assumption of independence between unobservables and observable marital attributes.