Marriage Earnings Research Articles

For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples

We investigate the earnings effects of marriage among same-sex couples in the United States. Gays and lesbians in the United States have only recently been allowed to enter into legally recognized marriages. As such, we know little about the impact of same-sex marriage on the economic lives of gays and lesbians. We use data from the 2013 to 2017 American Community Survey to show that married gay men experience a 3% marriage earnings premium and lesbian women experience a 6% marriage earnings premium relative to their unmarried cohabiting counterparts. The marriage premium for gay men is smaller than that of heterosexual married men, but the lesbian marriage premium is similar in size to the premium for heterosexual women. In both cases, we show that the marriage premium is larger relative to single gay men and lesbian women in the 2013 to 2017 National Health Interview Surveys. We also find that the marriage premium is more than two times larger among individuals who earn more than their partners, and marriage increases intrahousehold differences in labor market outcomes. This pattern is consistent with a common explanation of the earnings premium experienced by heterosexual men and women: marriage increases investments in relationships that affect patterns of household specialization. Therefore, our results suggest that the effect of marriage on how households organize their time is general and not unique to different-sex households.

Selection and Specialization in the Evolution of Marriage Earnings Gaps

We examine changes in marriage and earnings patterns across four cohorts born between 1936 and 1975 using data from Survey of Income and Program Participation panels linked to administrative data on earnings. We find that, for both men and women, marriage has become increasingly positively associated with education and earnings potential. We compare ordinary least squares and fixed-effect estimates of the earnings differential associated with marriage. We find that the marriage earnings gap fell for women in fixed-effect estimates, implying that the impact of specialization has diminished over time. We also find that increasingly positive selection into marriage overstates the reduction in the marriage earnings gap. Although marriage is no longer associated with lower earnings among women in our most recent cohort, the motherhood gap remains large. Among men, we find that the marriage premium actually increases for more recent birth cohorts in fixed-effects regressions.

Evolution of the Marriage Earnings Gap for Women

Using Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) panels linked to Social Security earnings records, we examine the earnings gap associated with marriage for cohorts of women born between 1936 and 1975. We compare ordinary least squares and fixed-effect estimates. We find that among women who work, the marital earnings gap has all but disappeared in fixed-effects estimates for recent birth cohorts. In fact, among women without children, married women earn more than single women, implying a diminished role for specialization when children are not present. In contrast, the motherhood earnings gap remains large even for recent birth cohorts.

Selection and Specialization in the Evolution of Marriage Earnings Gaps

We examine changes in marriage and earnings patterns across four cohorts born between 1936 and 1975 using data from Survey of Income and Program Participation panels linked to administrative data on earnings. We find that, for both men and women, marriage has become increasingly positively associated with education and earnings potential. We compare ordinary least squares and fixed-effect estimates of the earnings differential associated with marriage. We find that the marriage earnings gap fell for women in fixed-effect estimates, implying that the impact of specialization has diminished over time. We also find that increasingly positive selection into marriage overstates the reduction in the marriage earnings gap. Although marriage is no longer associated with lower earnings among women in our most recent cohort, the motherhood gap remains large. Among men, we find that the marriage premium actually increases for more recent birth cohorts in fixed-effects regressions.

How do marital status, work effort, and wage rates interact?

How marital status interacts with men's earnings is an important analytic and policy issue, especially in the context of debates in the United States over programs that encourage healthy marriage. This paper generates new findings about the earnings-marriage relationship by estimating the linkages among flows into and out of marriage, work effort, and wage rates. The estimates are based on National Longitudinal Survey of Youth panel data, covering 23 years of marital and labor market outcomes, and control for unobserved heterogeneity. We estimate marriage effects on hours worked (our proxy for work effort) and on wage rates for all men and for black and low-skilled men separately. The estimates reveal that entering marriage raises hours worked quickly and substantially but that marriage's effect on wage rates takes place more slowly while men continue in marriage. Together; the stimulus to hours worked and wage rates generates an 18%-19% increase in earnings, with about one-third to one-half of the marriage earnings premium attributable to higher work effort. At the same time, higher wage rates and hours worked encourage men to marry and to stay married. Thus, being married and having high earnings reinforce each other over time.

The Marriage Earnings Premium as a Distributed Fixed Effect

Wage equations using cross-sectional data typically find an earnings premium in excess of 10 percent for married men. One leading hypothesis for the premium is that marriage facilitates specialization that enables married men to become more productive than single men. Another is that the premium is attributable to an unobserved fixed effect, married men possessing qualities that are valued in the labor market as well as the marriage market. This paper suggests that the premium is attributable to an unobserved timedistributed fixed effect that emerges and grows with the approach of marriage and continues to grow for some years after marriage. A similar distributed fixed effect is found in the case of women, but it is smaller and declines after a few years of marriage. The results appear to cast doubt on the specialization hypothesis.