Search Results
Title: New Evidence against a Causal Marriage Wage Premium
Resulting in 1 citation.
| 1. |
Killewald, Alexandra Lundberg, Ian |
|
New Evidence against a Causal Marriage Wage Premium Presented: Seattle WA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2016 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Husbands, Income; Marriage; Transition, Adulthood; Wage Dynamics; Wages; Wages, Men Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Marriage is associated with increases in men's wages. Recent research claims the long-term wage benefits of marriage for men are as high as 20 percent and begin prior to marriage, as men anticipate marriage or experience wage benefits of unmarried partnership. We argue instead that marriage has no causal effect on men's wages in either the short or long term and that research on the marriage wage premium has overlooked literature in other subfields suggesting that marriage occurs when wages are already rising unusually rapidly. A vast literature documents that entrance into marriage depends on economic circumstances, suggesting that effects may flow from wages to marriage, rather than the reverse. Furthermore, the demographic literature on the transition to adulthood suggests that emerging adulthood is a time of both union formation and unusually rapid improvements in work outcomes. Using data from the NLSY79, we evaluate these perspectives, considering both the effects of getting married and remaining married. We conclude that the observed wage patterns are most consistent with men marrying at a time that their wages are already rising more rapidly than expected and divorcing when their wages are already falling, with no additional causal effect of marriage on wages. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Killewald, Alexandra and Ian Lundberg. "New Evidence against a Causal Marriage Wage Premium." Presented: Seattle WA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2016. |