Revisiting gender identity and relative income within households: A cautionary tale on the potential pitfalls of density estimators

Abstract

Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

Relative income and value congruence in dual‐income couples

“…For example, Bertrand et al (2015) reported that males outearn female partners in a far greater proportion of couples and that the fraction of couples in which the female's income exceeds the male's drops dramatically as the female's income increases above the 50% relative income threshold. This finding has been echoed in other research (e.g., Salland, 2018) although not universally (e.g., Kuehnle et al, 2021). The sharp inflection point at 50% indicates that females may be more accepting of situations in which they do not outearn males, obtaining lower-paying roles than they might otherwise be able to secure or leaving the labor force altogether (Bertrand et al, 2015).…”