Economic Theory of Optimal Marriage

Economic approach to the marriage represent that optimal conditions in family formation are realized whenever the man loves equally himself and his wife and so the household resources will be equally distributed. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to consider the credibility of this idea and to find empirical evidence. By using a sample including of 415 married men residing in Tehran, empirical evidence suggest that higher income of women tends to convey marriage to optimality but the age and education of women go in opposite direction. In addition, the number of children and the degree of resemblance of couple's tastes will have positive impact on reaching to optimal marriage. At last, marriage will be close to optimality, if the men’s education is higher than the women’s occurred in lower ages and the number of children and the degree of understanding between the couples is more. The most important implication of this paper is that the similar characteristics of men and women are not necessarily a favorite situation in marriage but some discrepancies seem to be better.