1. Objectifs

Intentions :
« The objective of this paper is to use standard theories in the literature to provide a quantitative accounting of the above regularities in an actual marriage market. » (p. 550)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
« The data consist of reconstituted family data elicited from New France’s birth, marriage, and death Catholic parish records, linked by demographers at the University of Montreal. [...] The sample employed here includes individuals born before 1700 with known life span. We also restrict the sample to those individuals that lived until at least age 10, since we are studying marriage market participation. These restrictions affect the sample size as follows: a birth record exists for 19,580 individuals (born before 1700), life span is known for 15,334 of them. Almost 4000 died before age 10, leaving 11,865 in the sample. » (p. 552)

Instruments :
Birth, marriage, and death Catholic parish records

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

« After describing the data set and society, the paper proceeds in two parts. First, we estimate a reduced form model. The estimates of the reduced form model show that a simple random matching model of the marriage market, in which women may leave the marriage market at a higher rate than men, can match the aggregate marital experiences of 18th century Quebec. Conditional on our random meeting assumption, our estimates also provide evidence that the marriage market was segmented by social status. Second, we also estimate a structural model that considers agents’ behaviour in the marriage market. Given the simplicity of the model, we view it as simply illustrative of the sort of results that can be generated with this class of model. » (p. 551)