Satoshi Tanaka

My interest is on Macroeconomics, Family Economics, Labor Economics, Household Finance.

This paper answers the question why single males' occupational mobility is higher than that of married males while we cannot observe such a difference between single and married females. I propose a model in which people search both for a suitable occupation and for a suitable spouse in their life-time. When a male and a female meet, they agree to marry or decide to search for a new partner. This choice depends on the quality of their match (love) and each other's future income path. I show that the gender difference of wages makes females more selective in males' future income path. As a result, males, who have not found a suitable occupation and thus whose expected future incomes are low, keep changing occupations and tend to remain single. On the other hand, males, who have found a good match of occupation and whose expected future incomes are high, stop searching for a occupation and more easily marry a female partner. I calibrate the model to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, and show the model can capture well the features of occupational mobility over the life-cycle, and explain the difference of occupational mobility between single and married males.