Economic analysis of age at first marriage

A subject of great interest to demographers is to relate the timing of demographic events to individual characteristics and environmental variables. Static models of marriage tend to give corner solutions, the choice of marriage, or remaining single. This article develops an economic model of marriage which gives interior solutions to the optimum age at 1st marriage and which does not include an explicit argument about the age at marriage in the utility function. In theoretical analysis, the life cycle model is modified to capture different aspects of the decision of when to get married. Results from empirical analysis support implications derived from the theoretical analysis.