Abstract
The objective of my thesis is to compute several marriage indicators that are included in a new two-sex marriage model recently proposed by Alho and Keilman (see Alho and Keilman 2008). The model deals not only with the competition effect between marriage candidates of the same sex, but is also parameterized in terms of the overall level of nuptiality and the quality of spouses. For the two- sex marriage model, I compute maximum likelihood estimates of marriage rates, marriage intensities, gender quality parameters and a parameter which describes unbalances between potential spouses. This model is satisfactory from the actual marriage behavioral point of view. Some of the empirical results will be compared with the results obtained from a traditional one-sex marriage model by using data for annual numbers of marriages in Norway for the period 1974-2002. I compare estimates for all marriages (i.e. both first and higher order marriages) with those obtained when the data are restricted to a first marriage for both partners. Although the patterns of indicators are very similar, the precise values of them reveal different results.