Research

Do we marry for love of money?

Is love the sole basis for marriage? According to new research from the Institute for Social and Economic Research partnership decisions are partly based on perceptions of the likely future success of a partner in the labour market. What's more, having a partner who is highly educated and highly motivated boosts your earnings - and these days, the benefits go as much to women as to men.

The research by Malcolm Brynin and Marco Francesconi examines the value of marriage and partnership on the principle that both men and women gain or lose materially depending on the type of partner they choose. They find that:

· Individuals become more productive in the workplace and earn more, the higher the 'human capital' of their partner.

· In earlier days, women generally did not work, and so the flow of this benefit was entirely from her to him. Now that women are nearly as fully engaged in employment as men, a process of equalisation is likely.

· Men and women who partner someone high human capital usually earn a higher wage than other men or women of the same educational level.

· There is a positive relationship between someone's wages and the relative human capital of both partners at the time of the formation of the partnership. This suggests that partnership decisions might be partly based on perceptions of the future labour market value of a partner.

The research argues that the marriage and employment markets overlap. Although the home and workplace are mostly separate places, their interconnections are more extensive than has generally been believed, and these links have important implications for people's welfare.

It is income that counts most in forming an individual's welfare. The way that most people can evaluate the future income of a prospective partner is through their educational achievements but also their motivation. Such characteristics work in both the labour market and in partnership decisions, individuals considering to embark on a lasting relationship will also want to know how successful the person they feel close to might be in the future, not just in work but more generally.

IEE publish Essex graduate

An Essex graduate, John Anderson, has recently seen his book on intelligent phone networks published by the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

Intelligent Networks explores the technology behind introducing intelligence into digital telephone networks. It includes a basic outline of the principles behind Intelligent Networks (IN) and tracks the application of the IN principle of separation of the service logic for advanced telephony services from the underlying call control infrastructures.

The book goes on to explain how large public networks are updated to incorporate IN principles for advanced telephony services and is illustrated using many practical examples.

As an alumnus from the University's Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, John Anderson has aimed this book primarily at postgraduate telecommunications students, although it will also be of interest to engineers requiring a concise and practical introduction to IN.

Also in the printed March edition of Wyvern:

• Major new project on oil-eating bacterial
• Bookshelf