IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ozl/journl/v8y2005i2p163-179.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Marriage and Money: Variations across the Earnings Distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Western

    (The University of Queensland)

  • Belinda Hewitt

    (The University of Queensland)

Abstract

This paper uses Australian data from the Negotiating the Life Course Project 1997 to investigate the impact of marriage on men’s and women’s earnings. We extend earlier earnings research and investigate whether the effect of marriage is constant for men and women at different points on the conditional earnings distribution by using robust and quantile regression techniques. We find no association between marriage and wages for women, but for men a large and significant premium exists with married men earning around $5,700 per annum more than their unmarried counterparts, after adjusting for human capital, job and family characteristics. Overall, there are very few differences in the association between marriage and earnings for men and women across the wage distribution. Although, importantly, we find that the returns to marriage tend to be smaller and non-significant for men at the top of the distribution than for men in the middle of the distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Western & Belinda Hewitt, 2005. "Marriage and Money: Variations across the Earnings Distribution," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 8(2), pages 163-179, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:8:y:2005:i:2:p:163-179
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftprepec.drivehq.com/ozl/journl/downloads/AJLE082western.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 1990. "Contested Exchange: New Microfoundations for the Political Economy of Capitalism," Politics & Society, , vol. 18(2), pages 165-222, June.
    2. Blackburn, McKinley & Korenman, Sanders, 1994. "The Declining Marital-Status Earnings Differential," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(3), pages 247-270, July.
    3. Harkness, Susan & Waldfogel, Jane, 1999. "The family gap in pay: evidence from seven industrialised countries," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6481, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Eng Seng Loh, 1996. "Productivity Differences and the Marriage Wage Premium for White Males," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(3), pages 566-589.
    5. Dolton, Peter J & Makepeace, Gerald H, 1987. "Marital Status, Child Rearing and Earnings Differentials in the Graduate Labour Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(388), pages 897-922, December.
    6. Susan Harkness & Jane Waldfogel, 1999. "The Family Gap in Pay: Evidence from Seven Industrialised Countries," CASE Papers 030, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    7. Tommasi,Mariano & Ierulli,Kathryn (ed.), 1995. "The New Economics of Human Behaviour," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521474207.
    8. Tommasi,Mariano & Ierulli,Kathryn (ed.), 1995. "The New Economics of Human Behaviour," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521479493.
    9. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    10. Harkness, Susan & Waldfogel, Jane, 1999. "The family gap in pay," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51396, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, March.
    12. Goldin, Claudia & Polachek, Solomon, 1987. "Residual Differences by Sex: Perspectives on the Gender Gap in Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 143-151, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nkechi S. Owoo & Monica P. Lambon-Quayefio, 2022. "Does Job Security Affect Fertility and Fertility Intentions in Ghana? Examining the Evidence," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 86-99, March.
    2. Cornaglia, Francesca & Feldman, Naomi E., 2011. "Productivity, Wages, and Marriage: The Case of Major League Baseball," IZA Discussion Papers 5695, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Ina GANGULI & Ricardo HAUSMANN & Martina VIARENGO, 2014. "Closing the gender gap in education: What is the state of gaps in labour force participation for women, wives and mothers?," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 153(2), pages 173-207, June.
    4. Henrekson, Magnus & Dreber, Anna, 2004. "Female Career Success: Institutions, Path Dependence and Psychology," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 574, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 25 Jan 2007.
    5. Wilson, Chris M. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2005. "How Does Marriage Affect Physical and Psychological Health? A Survey of the Longitudinal Evidence," Economic Research Papers 269622, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    6. COOKE Lynn Prince, 2001. "Impact of Dual Careers on Average Family Size: Comparison of 11 Countries," IRISS Working Paper Series 2001-05, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    7. Colm Harmon & Claire Finn & Arnaud Chevalier & Tarja Viitanen, 2006. "The economics of early childhood care and education : technical research paper for the National Economic and Social Forum," Open Access publications 10197/671, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    8. Lisa M. Amoroso, 2001. "Gender Effects As Macro-Level Effects: Germany and the United States 1991-1997," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(1), pages 128-134.
    9. COOKE Lynn Prince, 2000. "Gender Agency at the Intersection of State, Market and Family: Changes in Fertility and Maternal Labor Supply in Eight Countries," IRISS Working Paper Series 2000-09, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    10. Ribar, David C., 2004. "What Do Social Scientists Know About the Benefits of Marriage? A Review of Quantitative Methodologies," IZA Discussion Papers 998, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Bjerk, David & Han, Seungjin, 2007. "Assortative marriage and the effects of government homecare subsidy programs on gender wage and participation inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 1135-1150, June.
    12. Stephen Benard & Shelley Correll & In Paik, 2007. "Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty?," Natural Field Experiments 00227, The Field Experiments Website.
    13. Åström, Johanna, 2009. "The Effects of Assortative Mating on Earnings: Human Capital Spillover or Specialization?," HUI Working Papers 34, HUI Research.
    14. Ze'ev Shtudiner, 2015. "The Marriage Premium and Productivity: The Case of NBA Players," International Journal of Economic Sciences, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, vol. 4(4), pages 53-65, December.
    15. Sami Napari, 2006. "The Early Career Gender Wage Gap," CEP Discussion Papers dp0738, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Kitty Stewart, 2007. "Employment trajectories for mothers in low-skilled work: Evidence from the British Lone Parent Cohort," CASE Papers case122, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    17. Kunze, Astrid, 2014. "The family gap in career progression," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 29/2014, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    18. Boll Christina & Wolf André & Rossen Anja, 2017. "The EU Gender Earnings Gap: Job Segregation and Working Time as Driving Factors," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 237(5), pages 407-452, October.
    19. Arnaud Dupuy & Daniel Fernandez-Kranz, 2011. "International differences in the family gap in pay: the role of labour market institutions," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 413-438.
    20. Zhang, Xuelin, 2008. "The Post-childbirth Employment of Canadian Mothers and the Earnings Trajectories of Their Continuously Employed Counterparts, 1983 to 2004," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2008314e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marriage; Economics of gender; Wage Level and Structure; Econometric Methods; Single Equation Models; Single Variables; other; Statistical Simulation Methods; Monte Carlo Methods; Bootstrap Methods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • C29 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Other
    • C16 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Econometric and Statistical Methods; Specific Distributions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:8:y:2005:i:2:p:163-179. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sandie Rawnsley (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/becurau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.