This study reconsiders the phenomenon that married men earn more money than unmarried men, a key result of the research on marriage benefits. Many earlier studies have found such a “male marital wage premium.” Recent studies using panel data for the United States conclude that part of this premium is due to selection of high earners into marriage. Nevertheless, a substantial effect of marriage seems to remain. The current study investigates whether the remaining premium is really a causal effect. Using conventional fixed-effects models, previous studies statistically controlled for selection based on wage levels only. We suggest a more general fixed-effects model that allows for higher wage growth of to-be-married men. The empirical test draws on panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979 to 2012). We replicate the main finding of the literature: a wage premium remains after controlling for selection on individual wage levels. However, the remaining effect is not causal. The results show that married men earn more because selection into marriage operates not only on wage levels but also on wage growth. Hence, men on a steep career track are especially likely to marry. We conclude that arguments postulating a wage premium for married men should be discarded.
AhituvAvnerLermanRobert I.2007. “How Do Marital Status, Work Effort, and Wage Rates Interact?”Demography44(3):623–647.
2.
AkerlofGeorge A.1998. “Men without Children.” The Economic Journal108(447):287–309.
3.
AllisonPaul D.1990. “Change Scores as Dependent Variables in Regression Analysis.” Sociological Methodology20:93–114.
4.
AngristJoshuaPischkeJörn-Steffen2009. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
5.
AntonovicsKateTownRobert. 2004. “Are All the Good Men Married? Uncovering the Sources of the Marital Wage Premium.” American Economic Review94(2):317–21.
6.
AshwinSarahIsupovaOlga. 2014. “‘Behind Every Great Man…’: The Male Marriage Wage Premium Examined Qualitatively.” Journal of Marriage and Family76(1):37–55.
7.
BardasiElenaTaylorMark. 2008. “Marriage and Wages: A Test of the Specialization Hypothesis.” Economica75(299):569–91.
8.
BeckerGary S.1985. “Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor.” Journal of Labor Economics3(1):S33–S58.
9.
BeckerGary S.1991. A Treatise on the Family, 2nd ed.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
10.
BrownSusan L.2010. “Marriage and Child Well-Being: Research and Policy Perspective.” Journal of Marriage and Family72(5):1059–77.
11.
BrüderlJosefLudwigVolker. 2015. “Fixed-Effects Panel Regression.” Pp. 327–59 in The Sage Handbook of Regression Analysis and Causal Inference, edited by WolfC.BestH.London, UK: Sage.
12.
BudigMichelle J.EnglandPaula. 2001. “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood.” American Sociological Review66(2):204–225.
13.
BudigMichelle J.LimMisun. 2016. “Cohort Differences and the Marriage Premium: Emergence of Gender Neutral Household Specialization Effects.” Journal of Marriage and Family78(5):1352–70.
14.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. 2014. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort, 1979–2012 (rounds 1–25). Columbus, OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University.
15.
ChengSiwei. 2016. “The Accumulation of (Dis)advantage: The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Long-Term Wage Effect of Marriage.” American Sociological Review81(1):29–56.
16.
ChunHyunbaeLeeInjae. 2001. “Why Do Married Men Earn More: Productivity or Marriage Selection?”Economic Inquiry39(2):307–319.
17.
CohenPhilip N.2002. “Cohabitation and the Declining Marriage Premium for Men.” Work and Occupations29(3):346–63.
18.
DienerEdLucasRichard E.Napa ScollonChristie. 2006. “Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being.” American Psychologist61(4):305–314.
19.
DoughertyChristopher. 2006. “The Marriage Earnings Premium as a Distributed Fixed Effect.” Journal of Human Resources41(2):433–43.
20.
DuncanGreg J.WilkersonBessieEnglandPaula. 2006. “Cleaning Up Their Act: The Effects of Marriage and Cohabitation on Licit and Illicit Drug Use.” Demography43(4):691–710.
21.
EichengreenBarry. 1984. “Experience and the Male-Female Earnings Gap in the 1890s.” Journal of Economic History44(3):822–34.
22.
GintherDonna K.ZavodnyMadeline. 2001. “Is the Male Marriage Premium Due to Selection? The Effect of Shotgun Weddings on the Return to Marriage.” Journal of Population Economics14(2):313–28.
23.
GoughMargaretNoonanMary. 2013. “A Review of the Motherhood Wage Penalty in the United States.” Sociology Compass7(4):328–42.
24.
Grossbard-ShechtmanShoshana A.NeumanShoshana. 2003. “Marriage and Work for Pay.” Pp. 222–47 in Marriage and the Economy: Theory and Evidence from Advanced Industrial Societies, edited by Grossbard-ShechtmanS. A.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
25.
GuptaNabanita D.SmithNinaStrattonLeslie S.2007. “Is Marriage Poisonous? Are Relationships Taxing? An Analysis of the Male Marital Wage Differential in Denmark.” Southern Economic Journal42(2):412–33.
26.
HerschJoniStrattonLeslie S.2000. “Household Specialization and the Male Marriage Wage Premium.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review54(1):78–94.
27.
HillMartha S.1979. “The Wage Effects of Marital Status and Children.” Journal of Human Resources14(4):580–94.
28.
HodgesMelissa J.BudigMichelle J.2010. “Who Gets the Daddy Bonus? Organizational Hegemonic Masculinity and the Impact of Fatherhood on Earnings.” Gender and Society24(6):717–45.
29.
IsacssonGunnar. 2007. “Twin Data vs. Longitudinal Data to Control for Unobserved Variables in Earnings Functions – Which Are the Differences?”Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics69(3):339–62.
30.
KennyLawrence W.1983. “The Accumulation of Human Capital during Marriage by Males.” Economic Inquiry21(2):223–31.
31.
KillewaldAlexandra. 2013. “A Reconsideration of the Fatherhood Premium: Marriage, Coresidence, Biology, and Fathers’ Wages.” American Sociological Review78(1):96–116.
32.
KillewaldAlexandraGoughMargaret. 2013. “Does Specialization Explain Marriage Penalties and Premiums?”American Sociological Review78(3):477–502.
33.
KillewaldAlexandraLundbergIan. 2017. “New Evidence against a Causal Marriage Wage Premium.” Demography54(3):1007–28.
34.
KorenmanSandersNeumarkDavid. 1991. “Does Marriage Really Make Men More Productive?”Journal of Human Resources26(2):282–307.
35.
KrashinskyHarry A.2004. “Do Marital Status and Computer Usage Really Change the Wage Structure?”Journal of Human Resources39(3):774–91.
36.
LohEng Seng. 1996. “Productivity Differences and the Marriage Wage Premium for White Males.” Journal of Human Resources31(3):566–89.
37.
LoughranDavid S.ZissimopoulosJulie M.2009. “Why Wait? The Effect of Marriage and Childbearing on the Wages of Men and Women.” Journal of Human Resources44(2):326–49.
LundbergShellyRoseElaina. 2002. “The Effects of Sons and Daughters on Men’s Labor Supply and Wages.” Review of Economics and Statistics84(2):251–68.
40.
MeerJonathanWestJeremy. 2013. “Effects of the Minimum Wage on Employment Dynamics.” NBER Working Paper No. 19262.
41.
MincyRonaldHillJenniferSinkewiczMarilyn. 2009. “Marriage: Cause or Mere Indicator of Future Earnings Growth?”Journal of Policy Analysis and Management28(3):417–39.
42.
MorganStephen L.WinshipChristopher. 2007. Counterfactuals and Causal Inference. New York: Cambridge University Press.
43.
OppenheimerValerie K.1988. “A Theory of Marriage Timing.” American Journal of Sociology94(3):563–91.
44.
OppenheimerValerie K.2000. “The Continuing Importance of Men’s Economic Position in Marriage Formation.” Pp. 283–301 in The Ties That Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation, edited by WaiteL. J.BachrachC.HindinM.ThomsonE.ThorntonA.Hawthorne, NY: Aldine De Gruyter.
45.
OppenheimerValerie K.2003. “Cohabiting and Marriage during Young Men’s Career-Development Process.” Demography40(1):127–49.
46.
OppenheimerValerie K.KalmijnMatthijsLimNelson. 1997. “Men’s Career Development and Marriage Timing during a Period of Rising Inequality.” Demography34(3):311–30.
47.
PetersenTrondPennerAndrewHogsnesGeir. 2011. “The Male Marital Wage Premium: Sorting versus Differential Pay.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review64(2):283–304.
48.
Pollmann-SchultMatthias. 2011. “Marriage and Earnings: Why Do Married Men Earn More than Single Men?”European Sociological Review27(2):147–63.
49.
SampsonRobert J.LaubJohn H.WimerChristopher. 2006. “Does Marriage Reduce Crime? A Counterfactual Approach to Within-Individual Causal Effects.” Criminology44(3):465–507.
50.
SchneiderDaniel. 2011. “Wealth and the Marital Divide.” American Journal of Sociology117(2):627–67.
51.
SchoeniRobert F.1995. “Marital Status and Earnings in Developed Countries.” Journal of Population Economics8(4):351–59.
52.
SiebertWilliam S.SloanePeter J.1981. “The Measurement of Sex and Marital Status Discrimination at the Workplace.” Economica48(190):125–41.
53.
SobelMichael E.2012. “Does Marriage Boost Men’s Wages? Identification of Treatment Effects in Fixed Effects Regression Models for Panel Data.” Journal of the American Statistical Association107(498):521–29.
54.
StrattonLeslie S.2002. “Examining the Wage Differential for Married and Cohabiting Men.” Economic Inquiry40(2):199–212.
55.
SweeneyMegan M.2002. “Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage.” American Sociological Review67(1):132–47.
56.
WaiteLinda J.1995. “Does Marriage Matter?”Demography32(4):483–507.
57.
WaiteLinda J.GallagherMaggie. 2000. The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially. New York: Doubleday.
58.
WilsonChris M.OswaldAndrew J.2005. “How Does Marriage Affect Physical and Psychological Health? A Survey of the Longitudinal Evidence.” IZA Discussion Paper No. 1619.
59.
WooldridgeJeffrey M.2010. The Econometrics of Cross-Section and Panel Data, 2nd ed.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
60.
XieYuRaymoJames M.GoyetteKimberlyThorntonArland. 2003. “Economic Potential and Entry into Marriage and Cohabitation.” Demography40(2):351–67.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
