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Describe the general trends in marriage in the U.S. Why is the study of marriage important to an economist?
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The study of marriage is important to an economist because
1. For women, marriage provides not only a husband but also an occupation and an identity as a wife and a mother. 2. Marriage and family structure makes an enormous difference in the economic well-being of adults and children. 3. Marriage is economic behavior in the sense of "economics as a choice" 4. A family is in many ways a mini economy. Makes decisions about consumption and investment, work and leisure, and allocation of resources. 5. Economics can analyze the benefits or gains to a marriage |
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Why would an economist argue that the gains to marriage outweigh any costs for most adults?
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gains to marriage are:
1. speacialization 2. principle-agent problem 3. economies of scale 4. risk sharing |
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Describe the principal-agent problem. How does marriage uniquely deal with this problem?
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Principle-agent problem is when thee agent isn't working for the principles best interest. This is due to a lack of shared goals. The only way to fix this uniquely in a marriage is for the couple to create shared goals that satisfies both partners.
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How do economies of scale and risk-sharing produce gains for marriage households? Is marriage necessary for either/both of these types of gains? Explain.
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Economies of scale produce gains in a marriage because the cost of production decreases because the productivity is increased. Tasks can be distributed among more than one person. Likewise, with risk-sharing in a HH with multiple earners it is less likely to have financial distress and the earners will be able to diversify. Need to be married for risk-sharing but don't need to be married for economies of scale.
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Using U.S. census data, we observe that men are the primary or only income-earners in most of the married households. How would you explain those outcomes using the concepts of comparative advantage and the division of labor?
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Men are primarily the income-earners because they have the majority of comparative advantage meaning they excell in both market and nonmarket work but relatively more in the market. This means that the woman is close to the same amount of utility in nonmarket work but not even close to market work utlity. This gives the male an extreme advantage when considering who brings in the most income. This is also extended due to the division of labor. Although the gap is narrowing it still exists. Still today there are many family-HH that have only the male working. The male is the "bread-winner" and the woman is the "homemaker".
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Why might women have a comparative and/or absolute advantage in nonmarket work? (be sure you understand the difference between comparative and absolute advantage)
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because women are more nurturing and they communicate better than men. In addition women have a natural motherly instinct in order to take care of children
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Why might men have a comparative advantage and/or absolute advantage in market work?
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Men are naturally agressive in the job market. Division of labor is in advantage of men. men are more likely to get hired, maintain that job, and get a promotion. Men don't have to deal with maternity leave
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Would an economist argue that the benefits are greater than or less than the costs of multi-person household formation? Explain your answer.
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If an economist were to argue that the gains of marriage provide far more benefits then he would have to say that specialization, risk sharing, and economies of scale play a big factor in this. specialization will always allow an individual to earn more in comparison to being single. With risk-sharing, is a person who is single goes through a hard time then they will be more likely to experience financial hardships because their income is the only one they can depend on. In a marriage the individuals can depend on each other to help aid them in times of struggle. With economies of scale, an individual has to buy all their own things and pay for it on their own. In a marriage the responsibility of buying products and services is shared. Also, you don't have to by double of everything. You can just have one set of furniture shared by two people, etc.
These three things greatly increase the utility of living for a married person. |
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How would you use a model of the marriage market to predict the impact of changes in the sex ratio due to changes in the population of women or men
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If there is an increase in women relative to men then the supply will shift to the right. If there is a decrease in women then then the supply curve will shift to the left. If the number of men increases then the demand line shifts to the right and less men would move to the left
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How would you use a model of the marriage market to predict the impact of changes in the wages of women relative to men
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Increases of womens wages makes a woman less willing to marry therefore decreasing the supply of women and shifting the supply coruve left. If the wome'ns wages decrease then the line will shift to the right because the willingness to marry woud cause an increase in supply. If the wages go up then the willingness for a man to marry will increase and cause demand to go to the right and to the left it the wages of a woman go down.
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How would you use a model of the marriage market to predict the impact of changes in society attitudes/cultural norms
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Due to contraception, sex outside of marriage is safer so willingness to marry i less for both men and women so both will shift to the left.
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