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What Causes What
SMOKE

Disposable income → Income hypergamy preference

As the income gap closes, strict economic hypergamy yields to educational and cultural homogamy. Incentives, not a frozen instinct.

Observational · Moderate · N=400

The association does not survive the backdoor. Usually SES, outdoor time, or healthy-user bias.

Mechanism

Fisman et al. (2006): women preferred men from affluent neighborhoods and weighted intelligence heavily. Buss (1989): women stated higher value for earning capacity. The modern reading is a bargaining-and-insurance model: when a woman's own earnings and legal protections rise, the returns to marrying 'up' in money fall and the returns to matching on class and cognition rise.

Caveats

Speed-dating is not a marriage market. Neighborhood affluence is a noisy wealth signal. We do not have an RCT of income on women's preference weights.

Effect

qualitative. Women's preference for affluent partners is real in Fisman; it is not invariant to their own income and education.

Nodes

Socioeconomic statusDisposable incomePsychology & behaviorIncome hypergamy preference

Named confounders

Cite this page

What Causes What. “Disposable income → Income hypergamy preference.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-income-hypergamy (atlas updated 2026-08-31).

https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-income-hypergamy

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