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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 marriage and economic wealth of women and men. Going beyond previous research that focused on household wealth, I examine personal wealth, which allows identifying gender disparities in the association between marriage and wealth. Using unique data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, and 2012), I apply random-effects and fixed-effects regression models to test my expectations. I find that both women and men experience substantial marriage wealth premiums not only in household wealth but also in personal wealth. However, I do not find consistent evidence for gender disparities in these general marriage premiums. Additional analyses indicate, however, that women's marriage premiums are substantially lower than men's premiums in older cohorts and when only nonhousing wealth is considered. Overall, this study provides new evidence that women and men gain unequally in their wealth attainment through marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbourhoods provide unequal resources and opportunities. Past research has shown that migrants are less able to move to more resourceful neighbourhoods. For Germany, cross-sectional evidence shows that migrants live in worse neighbourhoods on average, but no longitudinal analysis of changes in neighbourhood quality after residential mobility has been conducted. The present paper closes this gap and tests the place stratification model and the spatial assimilation model. Data from the German Socio-economic Panel and the MICROM dataset are used for the years 2000–09. The data are analysed using fixed-effects panel regression. The analysis shows that Turkish households are less able to improve their neighbourhood quality through moves compared with German households, while households with other ethnic backgrounds do not differ significantly from the native population. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]