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iii This dissertation studies the impact of changes in outside marriage market opportunities on intra-household bargaining power. In the first chapter, I analyze the impact of the availability of healthy mates on intra-household bargaining power. I specify a marriage market matching model and test the main prediction that in marriage markets in which both healthy and frail men marry, an increase in the relative scarcity of healthy women enhances wives ' bargaining power. This effect is estimated in a collective labor supply framework in which spousal bargaining power and labor supply are inversely related. I use CPS data and Census data on disability and construct a sex ratio by health status at the metropolitan level. I estimate labor supplies for white married couples and find that a higher relative scarcity of healthy women in the couple's metropolitan area reduces wives ' labor supply and increases their husbands'. The role of sex ratios on spouses ' bargaining power is further explored in the second chapter. Using Census and CPS data for U.S. metropolitan areas in years 2000, 1990 and 1980, we construct a quality sex ratio by education brackets. We argue that