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Positive assortative mating may be a driver of wealth inequalities, but this relationship has not yet been examined. We investigate the association between assortative mating and wealth inequality within and between households drawing on data from the United States Survey of Income and Program Participation and measuring current, individual-level wealth for newly formed couples (N  = 3936 couples). We find that partners positively sort according to wealth over and above sorting by age, race, education, and income. In the absence of assortative mating according to wealth, the Gini coefficient for between-household wealth inequality would be 7 percent lower. Wealth inequalities would thus remain high if couples did not match by wealth. We find a within-household wealth gap of about USD 23,000 to the disadvantage of women. Whereas the within-household wealth gap would be markedly greater for women at the bottom and in the middle of the female wealth distribution without assortative mating, we also find that women would have a substantial wealth advantage under random matching at the top of the female wealth distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the association between parental separations during childhood and economic wealth of adult children. We provide a new test of this relationship and address two unresolved debates in the literature concerning (1) the pathways linking parental separation and adult children's wealth and (2) the relevance of the timing of exposure. We use data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey on 16,652 individuals and estimate mixed effects models after matching to predict adult children's wealth. We find that parental separation is associated with about 46 percent less net wealth for adult children. The negative association is limited to adult children who experienced parental divorce before age 15. The association does not differ between children who experienced parental divorce before age 6 and between age 6 and 14. We identify reduced education and earning capacities, unstable family structures among adult children and less future-oriented time preferences as likely mechanisms through which parental separation influences adult children's wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the accumulation of personal wealth of husbands and wives and investigates the development of within-couple wealth inequalities over time in marriage. Going beyond previous research that mostly studied the marriage wealth premium using household-level wealth data and that conceptualized marriage as an instantaneous transition with uniform consequences over time, we argue that entry into marriage is a gendered life-course event that dynamically shapes husbands' and wives' wealth accumulation. Using high-quality data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017), we apply fixed-effects regression models to describe wealth accumulation within marriage. We find evidence that wealth premiums are lower during early years of marriage, but increase steadily thereafter. The premium is mostly concentrated in housing wealth. Results from supplementary analyses with limited data, however, suggest that the premium may not be causal for men. Regarding within-couple wealth inequalities, we find a pronounced within-couple wealth gap prior to marriage during pre-marital cohabitation. This gap remains stable over time in marriage. In contrast to findings regarding income, our study indicates that the institution of marriage may not amplify within-couple wealth inequalities further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite considerable variation in gender-role attitudes across contexts and its claimed influence on female labour supply, studies provide little support for a contextual gender-role attitude effect. In this study, we reassess the contextual gender-role attitude effect on female labour supply because earlier studies are hampered by two shortcomings: (a) they are cross-nationally comparative, which makes it difficult to distinguish contextual attitude from institutional effects; (b) they are cross-sectional, which may bias the contextual attitude effect. We aim to overcome these shortcomings by performing longitudinal panel analyses on data from the British Household Panel Survey 1991–2007, comparing 138 counties within the United Kingdom. Our fixed-effects regressions report no significant and substantial association of regional, egalitarian gender-role attitudes with individual women's labour supply, a finding which both holds for women's probability to be active in the labour market and employed women's working hours, and for women with and without (young) children. Female labour supply appears to be much stronger associated with women's own and partners' gender-role attitudes, in particular for women with (young) children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the association between parenthood and the growth of personal wealth of women and men over time. We argue that parenthood creates unique restrictions and opportunity structures for mothers and fathers in terms of personal wealth accumulation. Using rich data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, 2012; N=28,650 individuals), we apply randomeffects growth curve models to test our expectations. We find that mothers' personal wealth growth rates are lower compared to childless women and compared to fathers. A considerable share of this association can be explained by discontinuous employment experiences of women in Germany, a context with a dominant male-breadwinner model. The wealth accumulation of mothers is additionally depressed by early first births and non-marital births. For men, parenthood is not generally associated with wealth accumulation, but we identify variation in the association with regard to the timing of and marital status at first birth. These results reveal a substantial motherhood wealth penalty previously hidden in analyses of household-level wealth, thereby contributing to our understanding of gender inequalities in economic well-being over the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the interdependence between marital separation and home ownership. Past research showed that separations reduce the likelihood of owning a home. We add to this literature by allowing partners to be aware of the risk of separation in our empirical analysis. We analyse (i) residential moves to owned and rented dwellings and (ii) the selection processes between ownership and separation. We also assess differences by gender and for two different institutional contexts, Britain and Germany. Drawing on results from two longitudinal surveys (British Household Panel Survey and Socio-Economic Panel Study, 1991–2008), we find that separation is negatively associated with ownership. Part of this effect is explained by lower prior investments in ownership by those who separate, but the effect is partly a direct consequence of separation. Although ownership rates increase again after repartnering, these rates do not reach the levels of the first marriage. Although the effect of separation has a universal character, substantial differences in housing markets allow ex-partners in Britain to maintain relatively high levels of ownership after a separation, while ownership rates fall dramatically in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]