Co-Working Couples and the Similar Jobs of Dual-Earner Households
January 2015
Working Paper Number:
CES-15-23R
Abstract
Although an increasing number of studies consider married or cohabiting couples as current, former, or potential co-workers, there is surprisingly little evidence on the extent to which couples work at the same workplace. This study provides benchmark estimates on the frequency with which opposite-sex married and cohabiting couples in the United States share the same occupation, industry, work location, and employer using Census 2000 responses linked with administrative records data. This study contains the first representative estimate of the fraction of couples that share an employer, which is in the range of 11% to 13%. These shared employers can account for much of couples' shared industry, occupation, and location of employment. Longitudinal data on the employment and residency indicates that co-working couples much more likely to have chosen the same employer than to have met at work.
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work census,
employee,
employed,
workplace,
worker,
matching,
occupation,
socioeconomic,
employer household,
intergenerational,
prevalence,
couple,
spouse,
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Longitudinal Business Database,
Retail Trade,
Employer Identification Numbers,
Unemployment Insurance,
Standard Occupational Classification,
Educational Services,
North American Industry Classification System,
American Community Survey,
Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics,
Census 2000,
Health Care and Social Assistance
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