Table 2.

Contribution of trends in the correlation between husbands’ and wives’ earnings to trends in inequality (coefficient of variation)

Decomposition and Data Source	Change	% Contribution to Change in CV	% Contribution of Component
a. Decomposition of Observed Change in CV From 1970–2013 (PSID data) Due to:
Change among newlyweds married 1970–2013	.0056	2.5	14.9
Change after first year of marriage for those married 1970–2013	.0087	3.9	23.2
Change among those married 1940–1969	.0205	9.2	54.8
Changing marital duration distributions	.0027	1.2	7.1
Total	.0374	16.7	100.0
b. Decomposition of Observed Change in CV from 1970–1980 (census data) Due to:
Change among newlyweds married 1940–1980	.0003	0.9	2.5
Change after first year of marriage for those married 1940–1980	.0103	34.8	99.7
Changing marital duration distributions	−.0002	−0.8	−2.3
Total	.0085	34.9	100.0
c. Combined Decomposition of Observed Change in CV From 1970–2013 (PSID and census data) Due to:
Change among newlyweds married 1940–2013	.0061	2.7	16.3
Change after first year of marriage for those married 1940–2013	.0291	13.0	77.8
Changing marital duration distributions	.0022	1.0	5.9
Total	.0374	16.7	100.0

Sources: 1970–2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and 1940, 1960, 1970, and 1980 U.S. decennial censuses.