Morning Must-Read: Larry Mishel: Misdirection on Assortative Mating and Income Inequality

Larry Mishel: Misdirection on Assortative Mating and Income Inequality: “This is a story about misdirection….

The paper… is titled ‘US inequality due to assortative marriages’… by Jeremy Greenwood [et al.]…. The authors conclude that ‘rising assortative mating together with increasing labour-force participation by married women are important’…. So, right out of the gate, a key influence not trumpeted in the headline (rising labour-force participation by married women) is introduced…. The question that should be answered is why income inequality grew a great deal between 1979 and now and was fairly stable before then…. Greenwood et al.’s data show that positive assortative mating declined(!) from 1980 to 2005… positive assortative mating was a force that equalized incomes after 1980. It was in the period from 1960 to 1980 that positive assortative mating lead to more unequal incomes. Consequently, their research in no way lifts up the role of ‘like marrying like’ in generating inequality since 1980: it actually means that economic inequalities overcame an equalizing demographic factor…. The title of the VoxEU piece, ‘US inequality due to assortative marriages’, may seem like it’s answering a relevant question, but it isn’t…