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Productivity, Wages, and Marriage: A Case Study in Professional Athletics

Author

Listed:
  • Francesca Cornaglia

    (Queen Mary University of London)

  • E. Feldman

    (Federal Reserve Board)

Abstract

The effect of marriage on productivity and wages has been long debated. A difficulty in estimating the effect of marriage on productivity is the lack of data that contain measures of both marital status and exogenous productivity. We fill this gap by using a sample of professional athletes from 1975 - 2007. Our results show that there is little correlation between individual measures of productivity and marriage, yet, wages are up to 15 percent higher for some married players. We find that married players exhibit more stable performance and teams with higher fractions of married players are more successful.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesca Cornaglia & E. Feldman, 2017. "Productivity, Wages, and Marriage: A Case Study in Professional Athletics," Working Papers 818, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:818
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Wage gap; Marriage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General

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