The Effect of Time in a Multi-Dimensional Marriage Market Model

In the paper, I develop a theoretical model of a marriage market that accounts for the effect of aging on agents’ wealth and physical attractiveness. Furthermore, I use the model to analyze how the structure and more importantly the stability of the marriage market is affected by the increased female income prospects. First, I find that the changes in agents’ characteristics can result in an incentive to re-match and thus provide yet another explanation of the phenomenon of divorce. Second, comparative statics show that an increase in female income prospects increases the divorce rate, which suggests that the stabilization effect of being more attractive for a current partner is dominated by the effect of increased female marriage market opportunities.