Higher education effects in job and marital satisfaction: theory and evidence

This paper examines how educational decisions affect job and marital satisfaction. We build up a model with educational assortative matching where individuals decide whether to attend university both for obtaining job satisfaction and for increasing the probability to be matched with an educated partner. The educational choices between future partners are simultaneously determined as a Nash equilibrium. The theoretical results suggest that, as assortative matching increases, the proportion of educated individuals increases. For educated individuals, job satisfaction falls and marital satisfaction increases. We test our model using the British Household Panel Survey. We carry out longitudinal analysis for years 2003-2006. Our empirical findings support the theoretical results.