Love and Money with Inheritance: Marital Sorting by Labor Income and Inherited Wealth in the Modern Partnership

Pasteau, Etienne; Zhu, Junyi

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3234187

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The association is slightly smaller for partnerships that were formed 10 years or less before the survey. Similar evidence for homogamy in inheritances is found for Germany (Pasteau & Zhu, 2018). To our knowledge, no study investigates homogamy in own individual wealth beyond the meeting stage, but indirect evidence can be drawn from studies showing that couples own a substantial part of their wealth jointly (Kan & Laurie, 2014;Lersch & Vidal, 2016;Nutz, 2022).…”

Section: Background Prior Evidence On Wealth Homogamysupporting

confidence: 54%

Dynamics of Wealth Homogamy in Couples

Trinh¹,

Lersch²,

Schunck³

2023

Preprint

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Partners’ resemblance in a given characteristic, also known as homogamy, bears important implications for social structures. Still, research into the extent and determinants of homogamy in wealth is scarce. Using representative household surveys from Britain and Germany, we estimate associations between different-sex partners’ wealth during their first 10 years of cohabitation. We do so to distinguish between mechanisms operating at the beginning vis-à-vis later partnership stages, whose relative importance may differ across context. In both countries, we find positive and substantive associations in partners’ personal net wealth. Wealth homogamy at early partnership stages can be attributed to assortative mating on current and expected future wealth. Wealth homogamy at later partnership stages is further driven by the pooling of resources through joint homeownership in Germany but not Britain. We also find evidence for growing similarity in partners’ saving and investment behavior. Mechanisms that operate over the course of the partnership thus appear critical for wealth homogamy in modern societies.

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Section: Background Prior Evidence On Wealth Homogamysupporting

confidence: 54%

Dynamics of Wealth Homogamy in Couples

Trinh¹,

Lersch²,

Schunck³

2023

Preprint

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“…The socialization efforts of the family also transfer social capital, by allowing their offspring to grow into the social networks of wealth and to meet potential spouses of similar status. According to Wagner et al (2020Wagner et al ( , p. 1809, "individuals from wealthy families are relatively unlikely to partner with individuals from families with low wealth" (see also Benton & Keister 2017, Pasteau & Zhu 2018, Pfeffer & Killewald 2015. Social exclusion is a mechanism of wealth perpetuation not only historically but also today (Keister 2005).…”

Section: Cultural Social and Symbolic Capitalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Durable Wealth: Institutions, Mechanisms, and Practices of Wealth Perpetuation

Beckert

2022

Annu. Rev. Sociol.

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Research indicates that positions of very high private wealth can often be maintained by families over many generations. This article puts front and center the institutions, mechanisms and practices through which families at the very top of the wealth distribution protect and enlarge their wealth. Opportunity hoarding is based on legal institutions, most importantly inheritance law, trust law, advantageous financial regulations and estate tax policies. Wealthy owners also pay for a growing number of legal and financial experts whose task it is to protect their fortunes. The stipulations of legal institutions are shaped through lobbying, campaign donations and the influencing of public opinion, facilitating the intergenerational preservation of large fortunes. Philanthropy appears to be not primarily a means of supporting general welfare, but rather a further instrument of wealth protection of the super-rich through their role in legitimizing large fortunes and the reaping of tax benefits. The entrenched character of large fortunes opens up questions regarding the normative identity of contemporary societies. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 48 is July 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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‘Take the Money and Run’: Dutch Evidence on Inheritance and Transfer Receiving and Divorce

Basiglio

2021

Ital Econ J

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This paper aims to investigate whether a wealth endowment, such as an inheritance or a gift, can increase the chances of getting divorced, using Dutch panel data for the period from 2002 to 2016. According to the literature, different factors may lead to the breakdown of a marriage; however, the role played by inherited wealth has never been explored so far. Starting from the idea that the receipt of an inheritance might have an impact on various aspects of an individual’s life, estimations of a Cox proportional hazard ratios model are performed and tests are carried out to establish which variables, with particular attention being given to inherited wealth, act as drivers in increasing the chances of withdrawing from a marriage. The findings suggest that when the wealth endowment has been received by the wife, this increases the chances of the couple separating. This signals that receiving an inheritance/gift changes the bargaining power between the couple: for the husband, it does not represent an incentive to divorce, while the results suggest that the wife might perceive a change in the bargaining power, increasing the likelihood of marital disruption.

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Love and Money with Inheritance: Marital Sorting by Labor Income and Inherited Wealth in the Modern Partnership

Cited by 4 publications

References 30 publications

Dynamics of Wealth Homogamy in Couples

Dynamics of Wealth Homogamy in Couples

Durable Wealth: Institutions, Mechanisms, and Practices of Wealth Perpetuation

‘Take the Money and Run’: Dutch Evidence on Inheritance and Transfer Receiving and Divorce

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