Replication package for Analyzing matching patterns in marriage: Theory and application to Italian data

Social scientists have long been interested in marital homogamy and its relationship with inequality. However, measuring homogamy is not straightforward, particularly when one is interested in assessing marital sorting based on multiple traits. In this paper, we argue that Separate Extreme Value (SEV) models not only generate a matching function with several desirable theoretical properties, but they are also suited for the study of multidimensional sorting. Speci cally, we show (i) how a small number of factors can be identified that capture most of the explained variance in matching patterns, and (ii) how these factors relate to various \outcomes" of the post-matching relationship, such as children's human capital and well-being. We then use rich small-scale survey data to examine sorting among parents of children attending schools in Naples. Our  ndings show that homogamy is pervasive; not only do men and women sort by age, education, height, and physical characteristics, but they also look for partners that share similar health-related behavioral traits and risk attitude. We also show that marital patterns are well explained by a low number of dimensions, the most important being age and human capital. Moreover, children of parents with a high human capital endowment perform better at school, although they report lower levels of subjective well-being and of perceived quality of relationship with their mothers.

The replication package contains the survey data collected by one of the authors, Carla Guerriero, in a 2019 field survey (CHILDROLE). It also contains Stata and R programs to replicate all tables and figures present
in the paper and its appendix (17 tables and 4 figures).