This study examines the accumulation of personal wealth of husbands and wives and investigates the development of within-couple wealth inequalities over time in marriage. Going beyond previous research that mostly studied the marriage wealth premium using household-level wealth data and that conceptualized marriage as an instantaneous transition with uniform consequences over time, we argue that entry into marriage is a gendered life-course event that dynamically shapes husbands’ and wives’ wealth accumulation. Using high-quality data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017), we apply fixed-effects regression models to describe wealth accumulation within marriage. We find evidence that wealth premiums are lower during early years of marriage, but increase steadily thereafter. The premium is mostly concentrated in housing wealth. Results from supplementary analyses with limited data, however, suggest that the premium may not be causal for men. Regarding within-couple wealth inequalities, we find a pronounced within-couple wealth gap prior to marriage during pre-marital cohabitation. This gap remains stable over time in marriage. In contrast to findings regarding income, our study indicates that the institution of marriage may not amplify within-couple wealth inequalities further.

中文翻译：

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婚姻中的财富积累：随时间的变化和夫妻之间的不平等

本研究考察了夫妻个人财富的积累，并调查了婚姻中随着时间的推移夫妻内财富不平等的发展。以往的研究主要使用家庭层面的财富数据研究婚姻财富溢价，并将婚姻概念化为随着时间的推移具有统一后果的瞬时转变，我们认为，进入婚姻是一种性别化的生命历程事件，动态地塑造丈夫和妻子的财富积累。使用来自德国社会经济小组研究（2002、2007、2012 和 2017）的高质量数据，我们应用固定效应回归模型来描述婚姻中的财富积累。我们发现证据表明，婚姻的早期财富溢价较低，但此后稳步上升。溢价主要集中在住房财富上。然而，数据有限的补充分析结果表明，保费可能不是男性的因果关系。关于夫妻内财富不平等，我们发现婚前同居期间夫妻内财富差距明显。这种差距在婚姻中随着时间的推移保持稳定。与收入方面的调查结果相反，我们的研究表明，婚姻制度可能不会进一步放大夫妻内部的财富不平等。