TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Almar, Frederik
AU  - Friedrich, Benjamin
AU  - Reynoso, Ana
AU  - Schulz, Bastian
AU  - Vejlin, Rune Majlund
        TI  - Educational Ambition, Marital Sorting, and Inequality
        PY  - 2025/Mar/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 17814
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp17814
        AB  - This paper revisits the link between education-based marriage market sorting and income inequality. Leveraging Danish administrative data, we develop a novel categorization of “ambition types” that is based on starting wages and wage growth trajectories associated with detailed educational programs. We find a substantial increase in assortative matching by educational ambition over time, and the marriage market explains more than 40% of increasing inequality since 1980. In contrast, sorting trends are flat with the commonly-used educational level categorization. We conclude that the mapping from education to types matters crucially for conclusions about how education-based marriage market sorting contributes to rising income inequality.
        KW  - education
KW  - marital sorting
KW  - inequality
        ER  -