
What Is the Male Marriage Premium? - monort
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/02/what_is_the_mar.html
======
geebee
There may be one under-reported angle on this.

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264513198_Penalizin...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264513198_Penalizing_Men_Who_Request_a_Family_Leave_Is_Flexibility_Stigma_a_Femininity_Stigma)

There is clearly a correlation between men having children and men getting
higher salaries, and the reverse for women. However, this may reflect the fact
that women are more likely to withdraw from work to take care of children
(regardless of whether they'd prefer to), and men may double down on work.

Women are more likely to incur a penalty for taking time off due to child care
needs, but that is largely because they are more likely to do so in the first
place. Men do this much less often. However, there is evidence that the
relatively small number of men who do this pay an unusually heavy career
penalty for it.

This can be a problem for women. If we reduce the stigma for taking time off
and provide generous leave, but only for women, but penalize men for doing
this, then we actually end up putting even more pressure on women to carry
this obligation.

~~~
kefka
So, is it fair to pay women less?

/dons firesuit

Discussing marriage, pregnancy, childbearing status or the like is an absolute
no-go for employers. So, the ideal solution is to consider all women capable
of this.

Because of women's protected status of childbearing and leaving/returning, it
would seem from a pure business perspective, that women are liabilities that
can leave the job at any time and get it back, legally. What is this...
scheduling latitude actually worth? I'd really like to see statistics on this.
But on a sniff-test, this seems probably true and the reason why women are
paid less: more risk.

Men don't have the same options here, at least in the US. Ideally, to "Level
the Playing Field", I'd like to see men with the same rights as women. But
alas, we're not really headed into more workers' rights territory.

~~~
TulliusCicero
From an individual homo economicus perspective, paying people who have heavy
life obligations like kids less than people who can work tons of hours is
rational. That's why government regulation is important if we want a different
result.

~~~
kefka
> From an individual homo economicus perspective, paying people who have heavy
> life obligations like kids less than people who can work tons of hours is
> rational.

Oh absolutely. That's why I'm coming at this from a purely business/economics
viewpoint. It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing.

I'd also argue, it's very much true (as in, fact practiced regularly, not a
value judgement).

> That's why government regulation is important if we want a different result.

I agree. However, the majority party in office (in the USA) now wants nothing
more than to repeal any and every business law and regulation. I do not see us
little people with getting these kinds of equality laws passed. If anything,
I'd expect that the meager protections women have would arguably be
demolished.

~~~
Grustaf
>It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing

Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly
economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new
generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them.

If women would be penalised for taking time off they would be less inclined to
have children, at least if they have a well paying job. The long term
consequences of that are quite bad.

Greedy algorithms are never optimal in macro economics. The local maxima are
never global.

~~~
geebee
It is a problem. In some ways, this is why I'm ok with the government setting
the rules, sometimes fairly strict ones. One example might be laws limiting
business hours, or laws the make a certain amount of vacation leave mandatory.
They violate individual freedom, but they may also make it possible for people
to close shop or take a vacation.

Sweden recognized this problem - it created very generous programs for women,
but realized that this was providing an incentive for women to leave the
workforce, often in their 30s, an important decade for rising through the
ranks, while men remained in the workforce. They then created more generous
incentives for me, but discovered that the men weren't taking them - partly
because of social and organizational pressure not to (perhaps related to the
article I posted above). They finally created a very generous "use it or lose
it" system where the men were just walking away from too much benefit not to
take the policy, and I believe launched a major campaign to get men to take
the leave. The idea is to create enough of a critical mass that the "male
child leave" stigma would fade and this would become the norm.

~~~
Grustaf
Well Sweden doesn't really have the same views on "individual freedom" as the
US, but even here a lot of people were upset at the "mandatory" 3 months to be
taken by the father when it was instituted.

Even as a fairly libertarian person, I didn't mind it, since it's just an
option, nobody's forcing anyone to take it. And nudging fathers to take a more
active role in child rearing is definitely a good investment for society, even
economically speaking.

I'm not sure it had much of an effect though, at least in my circles I haven't
noticed any big shift in paternal leave taking. And I must say that at
certainly for the last 10 years there's been no stigma at all around it, again
in my circles.

------
strictnein
Follow up posts:

What Is the Female Marriage Penalty?

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/02/what_is_the_fem....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/02/what_is_the_fem.html)

Policy Implications of the Marriage Premium

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/policy_implicat....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/policy_implicat.html)

9 Short Observations about the Marriage Premium

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/03/22_short_argume.html)

------
Mz
They missed the obvious: Married men are more productive because they have a
woman at home doing the "women's work." This both raises their quality of life
AND frees up both time and energy to put into their job instead of into self-
maintenance.

I have seen this from both sides of the equation: I was a full time wife and
mom for a lot of years. Then, I got divorced. I told my sons I would rather
they take over the "women's work" so I could put more into my job than for
them to get some kind of part time, minimum wage job.

This is basically a form of transferring her energy to him and the employer
paying for getting the extra energy and mental focus he can now bring to the
table. This works reasonably well (societally speaking) in a traditional
society where women are primarily homemakers and moms. It works less well in a
world where people are getting married later, we are actively discouraging
people from having more kids because there are already more than 7 billion
people on the planet, etc. We need to find another answer, one that allows for
young, single people, childless couples, etc to all have full lives.
Otherwise, it is just the married men who get The Good Life and everyone else
is shorted.

~~~
svv
This falls under the Explanation #2: Human capital. By the way, the post does
not mention whether the study controlled for wives staying at home.

~~~
Mz
Except for the detail that the article entirely credits the man with being
more productive and in no way whatsoever suggests that his wife's work in any
way whatsoever contributes to it:

 _Maybe marriage makes men work more hours; maybe it makes them work harder
per hour; maybe it makes them control their tempers better; maybe all of these
and more._

It gives zero credit to the wife somehow genuinely enhancing his life by
cooking, cleaning, having sex with him, etc. It just suggests that married men
choose to be more virtuous. Done.

~~~
bobwaycott
Yeah, the omission of unpaid female labor at home as a factor to consider is
glaring.

~~~
Mz
Thank you.

------
drblast
In my own case, I'm working and making as much as I do because I'm married and
have kids and my wife is a stay-at-home-mom. This is still a very socially
acceptable arrangement.

If I weren't married with kids, I'd be a semi-retired snowboard instructor. I
am _not_ driven by my career at all. I'm good at it, and I make good money,
but I wouldn't otherwise be doing it.

~~~
zaroth
Right! I guess economically you are "more productive" than your unmarried
counterpart but it's important to note this isn't the result of natural
ability manifesting in greater likelihood of being selected by a partner
(utter nonsense) but rather, now that you have a partner you have a
responsibility to someone else to maximize your income.

~~~
cmdrfred
I'll be married myself in a month and the mere thought of children at some
point in the future has caused me to begin accepting any overtime offered to
me. I can't imagine a more powerful motivator except a gun to my head.

------
ianai
They routinely give the men with children/wives the better hours, pay, and
whatever else at my work. They just changed several peoples' schedules so that
my peer could have Saturdays off with his kid. Contrast that with myself: I
have requested the same shift and been denied. I don't have kids. I also have
better reasons to be on that shift. In my anecdotal experience, it appears
classist. I would file that under 'human capital'.

~~~
cmdrfred
You say you have "better reasons", childcare is pretty important when you
consider all the downstream effects. Are you certain you are objective on
this?

~~~
dikdik
It shouldn't matter if his reasons are he wants to sit at home, get high, and
eat doritos.

Businesses aren't families, employees shouldn't be discriminated against
because another employee needs/wants help.

~~~
scld
It's possible that the business is making a bet that the married person needs
better compensation to be stay at that job, simple supply and demand.

OR, as the article states, it has nothing to do with marriage and the married
person is better at their job and gets to push their weight around more where
scheduling is concerned.

------
zaroth
I didn't get much past the 3 hypothesis in TFA because I stopped and had to
ask, isn't it obvious that married men earn more because they have to in order
to support their families?

It seems to me that the biggest factor in earnings is how hard you work.
Nothing quite as motivating as needing to support your family... Married men
earn more because they have to.

There is definitely a secondary effect I have seen though, it seems like
having kids can boost your salary independent of ability/productivity due to
the boss believing your are justified in asking for more money. Pay is set
more based on what your boss thinks you need than what you are worth.

~~~
clarkmoody
Your points are encompassed in hypotheses #2 & #3...

~~~
zaroth
Not at all! Married men are certainly not more productive because they are
married -- marriage, and kids in particular, are a massive _drain_ on
productivity.

And being married certainly isn't a signal of being more productive, if
anything the opposite.

I think the OP is assuming far more rationality in wage-setting than actually
exists.

A single man in his 20s or 30s will be way more productive than the married
man with the same experience. But the married man will be paid more "because
he has a family to support."

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You want stereotypes? OK, I'll give you stereotypes.

A single man in his 20s is a slacker. He works hard enough to not get fired,
and not much past that. A married man of the same age works hard enough to try
to get promoted so he gets paid more. Which is going to be more productive?
(Yeah, I know, you say the married man has a lot more distractions - but the
single guy is hitting Tinder every minute his boss's back is turned. That
single guy is _less_ distracted? I doubt it's an unambiguous win.)

~~~
zaroth
I think the ambiguity is between productivity as a result of feeling compelled
to work, versus productivity as a result of being more competent.

I think people confound competency into the so-called "marriage penalty" and
think along the lines of "more competent workers are more suitable mates and
therefore more likely to be married".

But I think it's more likely the increased productivity (if there is any, as
there are clearly countervailing forces) is a result of being compelled to
work harder because there's a family to support.

So it's not at all clear to me that there's some positive signal to employers
from being married. Certainly in the end the married guys get paid _a lot_
more though!

------
scarface74
In the U.S., even with the ACA, it's still easier to have health insurance
through your job. When I was single and solely responsible for having health
insurance, I couldn't as easily jump back and forth between contract jobs and
permanent jobs. I couldn't take advantage of high pay with no benefits like I
can now.

My wife having good family health insurance has allowed me to be more
aggressive about opportunities.

I know other people who own a business and their wife works at low paying
government jobs with good benefits.

------
tyingq
Would have been interesting to see a breakdown by dual-income vs single-
income, unmarried with/without dependants, etc.

If you get married, and find yourself supporting a spouse, and potentially,
children, you have new motivation to make more money.

~~~
VygmraMGVl
On the flip side, if you find yourself with a partner at home who isn't
employed, you may work longer or harder because you feel less pressure to cook
and clean.

~~~
Arizhel
That depends on the partner...

------
rlpb
Have they controlled for age? Or is that included in their claim of having
controlled for experience?

Older men are more likely to be married (since finding a partner takes a
variable amount of time, and the marriage rate is higher than the divorce
rate). And salaries also tend to go up over time as employees build their
careers.

This would of course be part of the author's "Explanation #1: Ability bias.".
I'm just surprised that this sub-explanation isn't explicitly called out.

~~~
AstralStorm
Yes, it is mentioned further in the series they have controlled for age. How
effective that control was is not described. I'd like a full methodology.

------
mettamage
I'm noticing that the right type of girl stimulates me to be a better me. It
also stabilizes my sleeping rhythm.

\-- not married by the way, just my observations with GFs

~~~
JBReefer
I agree. There's a measurable relationship "bonus" to my life in happy
relationships - having someone who double checks my logic, notices things I
missed, works when I'm sick, etc. make things _much_ smoother.

------
trevyn
Until a couple weeks ago, I worked at a large Bay Area tech company with very
generous parental leave. I noticed that a lot of people there were having
kids.

I think it makes sense from a conpany perspective, because having kids (and a
marriage) seems to make people much more risk-averse, so they're more likely
to stay at the nice, stable company.

Which is helpful for the company when attrition is one of your big problems.

------
Agathe
Suggested reading related to the topic: Smart & Sexy by R. Kaynes
([https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Sexy-Evolutionary-
Underpinnings...](https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Sexy-Evolutionary-
Underpinnings-Differences/dp/1910524743))

I wonder how he would comment this study...

\- higher IQ men are more likely to get married (because a higher IQ gives
them an advantage hence they are more desirable to women), and higher IQ men
earn more

\- married men have more pressure to dedicate their time and effort to provide
for their family, hence they end up earning more

\- married men have more pressure and make different career choices to better
provide for their family

\- this is a small leftover from a past, more conservative, more family
oriented society (before women entered the workforce) which valued married men
more (because more useful to society)

------
tryitnow
I don't really see a full fledged regression analysis here:
[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/01/the_college_pre....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/01/the_college_pre.html)

There are several potentially correlated variables (College grad and cognitive
ability?). That's not necessarily a problem but I think it would necessitate
showing different models, not just one.

It's also atheoretical - it's not advisable just to slap a model together and
find regression coefficients with high t-stats. In economics, it's important
to start with a believable hypothesis grounded in reasonable theory.

This study is like a half-hearted attempt at exploratory data analysis - half-
hearted because only the results of one model are shown and there are no
charts or graphs to give a feel for the data.

You really can't just jump to a conversation about causes unless you've done
more work on the data (maybe Caplan did, but he really needs to show it to
stimulate the conversation he wants to have).

------
mason240
I think it's mostly of the first. Having an income makes dating easier, having
a higher one makes it even more so.

One way to test that might be to follow a group of unmarried men who are all
the same age, and then 10 years later and compare the still unmarried with the
long-time married (5+ years).

------
acchow
Enjoyed the analysis.

I wonder if our educational system will ever reach the point where the
layperson doesn't immediately think "I should get married to increase my
income".

Tho many people seem to believe that moving to the Bay Area will increase
their earnings... post hoc ergo propter hoc.

~~~
dibujante
If the third hypothesis (signaling) is correct, then you _should_ get married
to increase your income.

~~~
mtanski
If domestic partnerships are still possible in the bay area (they were when I
lived there 5 years ago). You can get all the upsides without the downsides
(taxes & AMT).... and just call the other person your partner, they'll assume
you're married.

------
Spooky23
How much is the unmarried disparity correlated with divorce?

For people paying a % of income in child support/alimony, the incentive to
make more money is often missing or inverted.

------
jbmorgado
It would be interesting to see the number of working hours for married men vs
unmarried men. And I guess that data should actually be relatively simple to
get.

That could explain some unanswered questions in this article. I.E. If a
married men is working more time than an unmarried one, that would be a good
indication that a married men felt more pressured to work more after getting
married and that was where this premium was mostly coming from.

------
ouid
There is absolutely no reason to believe that restricting your data to shotgun
weddings would control for the things that they claimed to be controlling for.

~~~
sirclueless
The number of confounding factors is enormous.

1\. The man may be more likely to acquiesce to the wedding if they have a
stable income and can support a family.

2\. The interested parties on the bride's side may be more interested in
pursuing a shotgun wedding if the man has a stable income.

3\. The same reasons that lead women to pursue marriage with high-income men
may also lead them to pursue pre-marital unprotected sex with those men.

I'm sure you can think of more. This seems like a very suspect way to segment
a population.

~~~
linkregister
It's even further compounded by the fact that weddings with preconceived
children are unlikely to be genuine shotgun weddings in 2017. The social
pressure to reluctantly marry after conception is drastically less intense
than it was 60 years ago.

~~~
JBReefer
They'd probably need to conduct them in the regions where the "shotgun" part
isn't a metaphor, like deep Appalachia or rural Missouri. I'm from Missouri
and I promise, it's not always just a figure of speech.

~~~
linkregister
If they did so, then the scope of their study wouldn't be national; it would
only be regional. It wouldn't be relevant to national employment.

------
squozzer
I'm not buying the article's premise, i.e. that pay is determined by
productivity or its fascimile. As a counter-hypothesis, I offer the following:

Men are selected / promoted / rewarded based on reliability, women on
desirability.

By reliability, I don't mean something mechanical such as defects per million,
but closer in meaning to political reliability -- the tendency to adhere to
norms and expectations.

By desirability, I don't mean attractiveness, though that might form the
largest component, but also availability (would she like me if our situation
were a little different?)

------
bmh_ca
I've always wondered what, if any, is the multi-generational benefit/penalty
of mothers working full time in lieu of raising their own children.

------
thecity2
I'm 41 and am hoping to be engaged very soon (god and my gf willing!). I sure
as hell don't expect to earn a raise. lol

------
lemonsqueeze
Isn't obvious?

Higher value men are more likely to get married (He's a "good catch")

~~~
Arizhel
That's assuming there's high-value women to be had. From what I hear, that's
just not the case in Silicon Valley; the single-male/single-female ratio is
horribly skewed. I also hear Seattle is almost as bad. Over in NYC, however,
there's scads of single women who can't find a boyfriend.

------
anqh4
1\. Women seek men with high income,

2\. Having a housewife leaves the man with more free time to work.

See, no need to make a study.

~~~
civilian
> _2\. Having a housewife leaves the man with more free time to work._

That's hypothesis 2 of the three that they looked at, that marriage "makes a
man a more productive worker".

There is a need for a study. What if employers are simply assuming that
married men are better workers (hypothesis 3), but married men aren't actually
better workers? Than as an unmarried man, I'm getting discriminated against,
and marital status is a protected class. This is good shit to look at.

~~~
anqh4
I forgot 3, then:

3\. Employers assume married men, especially if they have children, are hard
workers and responsible

~~~
civilian
I'm glad you're being complete :)

But, can you see why it'd be good to study this? Which one of the three is it?
Or if it a mix, and what is the mix?

~~~
anqh4
Of course it would be good! My comment was facetious... in part ;-)

------
cm2187
Let's read this through the current hysterical liberal lens: unmarried men are
unacceptably discriminated! Companies must publish statistics on how they pay
married vs unmarried male employees. And they need to train their staff to
understand and fight their own bias against unmarried men! The reason for this
imbalance can only be outrageous discrimination. Anyone who thinks or suggests
otherwise should be silenced.

~~~
DonHopkins
It sounds like you're looking through some kind of lens that makes liberals
look hysterical to you, and you sound pretty hysterical about liberals
yourself. You should get your prescription checked, because you're seeing
things that aren't there.

Remember: liberals are the one who are for paid family leave, which today's
"family values" conservatives are against (except for themselves). [1]

"Speaker of the House Paul Ryan drew scrutiny this fall when he said, “I
cannot and will not give up my family time” as a condition of his speaker
candidacy. Ryan, who is a devout Catholic, has opposed family leave measures
proposed over the past several years. A spokeswoman for Ryan declined to share
the office’s policy on family leave for its congressional employees." [2]

[1] [http://abetterminnesota.org/2016/05/conservatives-rally-
agai...](http://abetterminnesota.org/2016/05/conservatives-rally-against-paid-
family-leave/)

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-
faith/wp/2015/11...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-
faith/wp/2015/11/30/in-the-paid-family-leave-debate-pro-life-pro-family-
groups-parental-leave-policies-are-all-over-the-map/?utm_term=.4bc1b4d503d8)

~~~
cookiecaper
Paul Ryan did not pass a law requiring the government to offer him family
leave. He set the expectations of the people who were considering electing
him.

This is the same thing as telling the job interviewer that weekends are off-
limits. Ryan is negotiating for himself, not using the government to enforce
the policy on an employer who is otherwise unwilling. That is 100% consistent
with his political position. He is not in favor of making family leave
illegal, he just opposes making it mandatory.

~~~
DonHopkins
Is your point that it's technically legal for him to be a huge hypocrite
totally lacking in empathy and compassion? I'll grant you that.

~~~
cookiecaper
My point is that he's not being hypocritical.

There's a difference between believing something should be guaranteed by law
and negotiating that same thing as a perk of your employment package.

~~~
DonHopkins
I see you can use it in a sentence, but I don't think you really understand
what the word hypocrisy means.

------
boshfpngr
This is pure causation. Men with more income and stability in their lives are
more capable of attracting women, therefore more likely to be married. How
could they miss such an obvious answer?

~~~
nnspace
"Explanation #1: Ability bias. The causal effect of marriage on male income is
smaller than it seems....Maybe income makes it easier to attract a spouse".

~~~
lemonsqueeze
Yep. No need to make a study.

