
'Acting Wife': Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments - jessaustin
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23043
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thedevil
The funny thing is, I preferred ambitious women, especially when contemplating
marriage.

It seems easier to get along with someone who has a career and therefore
similar goals and troubles and life-rhythm.

And a wife with a career is less likely to look for long term alimony in the
event of a divorce.

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epx
The fact that a woman can look for alimony shows that system is broken.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Alimony comes after divorce. I am questioning the validity of something that
comes even before that..marriage. I have often questioned the usefulness of
marriage in the modern world. What is its function other than the religious
aspect of it? There is certainly no moral clause to it..fidelity doesn't have
anything to do with a piece of legal paper. Does the state benefit by
validating and continuing to reward what is essentially was born as a
religious contract between two people. Personally..I think a lot of issues
from gender inequality to lgbt inequalities can be resolved if the artificial
social contract of 'marriage' loses its validation from courts and the state.

~~~
morgante
Arguably one of the benefits of marriage lies expressly in the expense of
divorce. It's a way of precommitting people to working through the rough
patches in a marriage instead of splitting at the first sign of trouble. If
you look at it strictly from a game theoretic viewpoint, there's definitely
value in having a contracted cost of separation. The tough part is in making
sure this cost isn't too high (as it used to be) nor too low (that people run
immediately).

~~~
jelliclesfarm
The social benefit of staying together instead of splitting up at the first
sign of trouble is to raise progeny together as a bonded pair.

Birds do this better than human beings and that's why they are usually bond
for life. It is expensive to raise offsprings and it is not worth expending
energy to gather resources to raising offsprings that aren't your own.

So..from a game theory point of view..it is not about divorces or alimony but
the ability or inclination(or lack thereof) to be monogamous.

Earliest mention of alimony occurs in the code of Hammurabi..wherein a man
shall return the dowry of the woman along with a portion of his property ..but
only when the woman has borne his offsprings. And until the children have been
reared and the property/monies split evenly amongst mother and children, she
cannot seek another suitor or marital partner or have other children.

Alimony comes from necessity ..it is necessary in a society that is rife with
inequalities. If men and women were equal in a marriage, there would be no
need for alimony.

In the olden days, a woman entered a marriage with a dowry. In gold or
currency or property. The dowry was meant to be her financial nest egg and the
man has no rights over it. Entire dynasties and kingdoms were based on
marriages and dowries.

And then it was the time of churches to decree what is moral and what wasn't.
Divorces were all initially only due to infidelity and often by the man.
Alimony became a safeguard so a man wouldn't profit from his philandering
ways. If the fault lies with the woman, the woman forfeits the right to
collect alimony.

With no fault divorces in our modern times, alimony became part of the divorce
settlement. If we don't have divorces, there won't be alimonies..if we don't
have a marriages, there won't be divorces.

Therefore, the only way eliminate gender inequalities is to eliminate the
institution of marriage.

Times have changed. What if..as a thought experiment, we revamp all manners of
social contracts. We will have to reconsider the basic human right to
procreate to perpetuate the species. It should become a responsibility and a
privilege to be earned..not a birthright to be exercised by all. And also
eliminate the institution of marriage.

Thoughts?

~~~
morgante
I didn't mention alimony at all in my comment and would rather not delve into
it, so I'm not sure why you fixated on it. Divorce can be costly even without
any sort of alimony (personally, I think it is mostly an outdated concept).

That being said, while I agree that historically marriage was all about
children I do think there are social benefits to bonded pairs which extend
beyond raising children. For example, single people are more likely to commit
crimes.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
Sorry...so what is 'expense of divorce' that you mentioned in your original
comment? How else is it 'costly'?

~~~
morgante
The legal fees alone can be a lot, as can splitting assets even if there is no
ongoing alimony.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I see. Well..the reason I spoke of alimony was because we were speaking of
alimony in the thread before your comment contribution to it. Cheers!

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wikibob
Full Text PDF:
[http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pallais/files/acting_wife.p...](http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pallais/files/acting_wife.pdf)

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tabeth
I don't have access to the full paper, but I'm surprised to see that there's
no definition of "ambitious." Is it ambitious to want to start a company or to
want to raise children successfully? Perhaps women have a different definition
of "ambitious", therefore men are trying to hold up women to their standard.

~~~
huac
It is self-reported and relative to others.

> "The questionnaire asks how often students are willing to travel for work,
> the number of hours per week they are willing to work, and their desired
> compensation. They were also asked to rate their ambition relative to their
> most recent work colleagues and their tendency to lead in day-to-day
> interactions on a 1-to-5 scale."

~~~
BurningFrog
So it's about ambitions in the workplace.

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Clubber
Women have been trained to be a timid, subservient partner to men for a
millennia, and it's hard to get away from. The answer is the same for women
and men: know your value, constantly strive to improve your value, and command
that you get paid your value. Also, know your interaction with business is
just that, business. Be more willing to cut a business relationship than a
personal one. Don't blame yourself if someone doesn't see your value, just
find someone who does.

Disclosure: My wife is also a programmer.

~~~
mirimir
I'd say that the "timid, subservient" bit is mostly an illusion and male
fantasy ;) It is true that women, in many cultures, were trained to focus on
family and reproduction. And men were encouraged to "do great things". And to
die in wars :(

Maybe there's some biological basis for that. But mostly, I think, it was just
historical accident. Driven by technological limitations, perhaps. And for
sure, it's all in flux now :)

~~~
VodkaHaze
I don't think it's a male fantasy. I also don't think it's biological. Just
look at how women and men are socialized from a young age.

Example: up until recently, many young girls in the west grew up on Disney
princesses. Rewatch the movies, and pay attention to the female protagonists
in those movies being active vs passive agents. Most are passive -- they're
simply dealt a series of events (which generally happen only because they are
beautiful or otherwise intrinsically valuable, not because of how they act).

Being exposed to those narratives from a __very __young age surely has an
effect on identity, personality formation, etc.

~~~
Clubber
Not only that, but her mother was brought up that way, and her mother, and her
mother, etc. The Civil War in the US broke that mold without a doubt, as
certainly did WWII, but the people who make the rules and make the propaganda
love inertia and keep trying to push women back into that traditional role,
even though it is unhealthy in today's knowledge economy.

~~~
gaius
_unhealthy in today 's knowledge economy_

As I say above, it depends what you are optimising for. Not that long ago, a
typical single-income household could afford a house, a car, a couple of
vacations a year and to send the kids to college and to save some. Now a
typical dual-income household is struggling to make ends meet. I don't have
any strong feelings either way on whether the man or the woman should be the
breadwinner; that's up to each individual couple to decide between them. But
it's unclear how making dual-income the norm is "healthy" for anyone.

~~~
Clubber
>But it's unclear how making dual-income the norm is "healthy" for anyone.

It's already the norm and has been for quite a while now. I'm specifically
speaking on women getting paid their value. I mean if both partners have to
work 40s, then might as well maximize profit on that labor.

~~~
laughfactory
It may be the "norm," but their point was whether the dual earner approach is
optimal. I.e., whether it "should" be the norm. Truth is dual earner started
as a way to try and vastly increase the household income. Unfortunately all it
did was double the supply of labor and drive down real wages. This isn't a
gendered argument. We would all likely be better off if every couple chose one
of them to work the 9 to 5, and the other one to manage the home and finances
(and pursue side ventures). If this happened we'd hope to see real wages
increase for those left in the labor market. To some degree we're already
seeing this. Labor participation among males is at its lowest point in decades
and still falling. Though it's still early days so real wages haven't yet
increased to compensate. Unfortunately this may not happen because corporate
America is used to plentiful cheap labor, and as the labor supply diminishes
they're pursuing automation strategies. In other words, corporate America has
options for adjusting to the ebbs and flows of labor supply which they used to
lack.

Even now the dual earner household exists because many people believe it
improves their lifestyle. But let's be honest, most people wouldn't want to
work if they didn't have to. Sure, in the absence of the need to make a
paycheck they'd likely still do productive, valuable activities, but very few
like to work for corporate America. Most jobs suck. Most managers suck. Most
of the time pay sucks. Having a job isn't (or shouldn't be) special for either
gender, it's a necessity to whatever point it takes to keep a roof over your
head.

Maybe when the robots take all our jobs we'll finally find a better way of
living.

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notadoc
You'd probably get different answers if you didn't study MBA students.

~~~
jcoffland
I think the assumption is that MBA students are more ambitious than normal.
Students often choose the MBA degree because they are unsure what they really
want to do. An MBA is seen as a generally useful degree which could lead to a
high paying job in many different fields. Limiting the study to students who
had made that choice, for whatever reason, could very well have an effect on
the study's outcome.

~~~
notadoc
So why not study medical students? You'd get vastly different responses.

~~~
jcoffland
Maybe.

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CryoLogic
In my experience, it is deathly hard to meet ambitious women. I've known many
ambitious men, but women in my experience seem to lack the desire to really go
all out in their careers.

I am sure there are biological factors, including variations in androgenic
hormones etc. But I do believe it is largely cultural and this study matches
what I've seen in my own life quite closely.

This is unfortunate because I am attracted to more ambitious women.

~~~
sokoloff
I had a direct report for years. She was very smart, capable, effective, and a
great thinking partner on my leadership team. She also got an unfair (IMO)
amount of blowback from her interactions with other leaders.

"Rough", "abrasive", "difficult" were the common labels. While there were
things she may have done differently, I don't think I'd have seen the same
blowback from an identically-acting male leader. I suspect that her experience
is common and that if it's gender biased (I think it is), this continual
molding could tend to create the outcomes you observe.

Thought experiment: How often do we tell young girls "Don't be so bossy" as
compared to how often we say that to young boys?

Or "Imagine that you just heard a mom tell her kid, 'Don't be so bossy!' What
gender is the child that she is addressing?"

~~~
jjoonathan
> How often do we tell young girls "Don't be so bossy"

I can't say, but every time I wind up watching a children's show targeted at
girls (usually in a lobby or exercise room), the protagonists are all highly
assertive and there's often heavy-handed promotion of the subtext "boys are
dumb and useless and it's OK to be a complete asshole to them if it gets you
what you want."

~~~
sokoloff
If you saw the exact same content in a show you perceived to be targeted at
boys, how certain are you that you'd think the same subtext existed with the
gender roles reversed?

~~~
jjoonathan
When was the last time you saw a children's TV show endorse violence towards
women? It was only a few month ago, in a hotel exercise room, that I saw a
non-self-defense kick-to-the-balls presented in a positive light (giggles from
the protagonists, affirming + explictly gendered statement from the narrator).
I was upset, but not shocked, because I've seen it before.

Hopefully it's just part of the natural swing towards over-correction and
it'll all settle out in another few decades, but a corresponding
overcorrection in corporate policy could get ugly. Psychopaths do well enough
in the corporate environment as it is.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I have a friend who mentioned his 'kick in the balls' theory..it goes
something like ..every chick flick will have a 'kick in the balls'(literally)
slap stick scene because it is cathartic to women and that Hollywood knows
that and will cater to that unconscious trigger for laughs. I started looking
for it in movies after that and I have to admit that it's true that there
would be at least one hurt male genitalia routine. Remarkable.

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jelliclesfarm
I am going to guess that there aren't any women in this thread..

~~~
lazyasciiart
Try reading it to find out next time instead of just popping in with a
mindless comment.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13681690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13681690)

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z3t4
i think down grading your worth is negative in the partner market. and that is
why they are single. or that they rated themself acording to social rank to
not piss off their class mates.

