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Is there a "marriage premium" for gay men?
Data on cohabitation suggest that the answer is no, whether for gay men or cohabiting heterosexuals. The standard selection story is that women are more likely to choose the high earning men and marry them. But why don't women live with these men too? Does living together not transfer enough resources? Could it be that real legal marriage is proxying for the ability to commit, which is positively correlated which other determinants of job success?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on December 1, 2007 at 01:38 PM in Data Source | Permalink
Comments
Thats silly. The difference between legal marriage and cohabitation is that you get to take half the assets with you when you leave a marriage.
Posted by: at Dec 1, 2007 3:30:36 PM
How can they possibly control for cultural differences in who gets married? Why should we believe that there is a causal relationship here at all?
Posted by: Emmett at Dec 1, 2007 3:48:42 PM
There's something I'm missing in this reasoning.
1. Heterosexual cohabiting men experience no premium.
2. Homosexual cohabiting men experience no premium.
3. ?????
4. Therefore, there is no marriage premium for homosexuals.
It seems fair to infer that there is no cohabiting premium for anyone. Absent a meaningful population married gay men, we don't have the data to infer there's no marriage premium.
Not to mention this is probably an issue of correlation and not causation. Women who don't work are (A) going to increase their husband's productivity significantly (by letting him specialize in work) and (B) are disproportionately likely to insist on marriage. There are probably a hundred other cultural issues at work here. It may well be that if all those cohabiting couples got married, the magnitude of the benefit would plummet, as it is far more effect than cause.
Posted by: Psychohistorian at Dec 1, 2007 6:21:03 PM
I just skimmed the paper. How can one measure whether or not gay marriage offers a marriage premium when that country (in this case the UK) does not offer gay marriage? What they have are civil partnerships which is very very recent offering. And I would think that lesbians partnerships would gain a premium over male/male partnerships as they are more likely to have children and have one stay at home (based on my own anecdotal evidence).
Posted by: tim at Dec 1, 2007 7:16:54 PM
If you have a form of marriage, which for biological reasons can't generate offspring, those people are going to have far fewer reasons to make relationship-specific investments...
Posted by: Chris at Dec 1, 2007 8:04:55 PM
Perhaps its time to look at the economics of it through the prism of evolutionary biology instead of just considering the economics alone.
Cohabitation over the millenia has been for creating and rearing children. Until recently, it was not feasible for women to be both a mother and have a career (in most cases). The design of the system was designed for men to stick around in a commitment.
That's how nature wanted it. Nature usually still gets what it wants.
Posted by: Ampontan at Dec 2, 2007 6:08:07 AM
Thanks for the link, Tyler.
Posted by: New Economist at Dec 2, 2007 11:24:39 AM
Ampontan, "career" is a 20th century (at best, 19th century) construct specific to industrialised societies. Women most certainly worked in pre-industrial societies, and in early industrial societies. In factories, on farms, running businesses with their husbands and so on. And bringing up children. The construct of women who "didn't work" (i.e. brought up the children and entertained) was an upper-class invention. The Victorian-era middle classes seized on it as a way of demonstrating their wealth, showing themselves as families who were rich enough that the mother didn't have to work for pay. Indeed, they didn't even have to do much of the housework or bringing up of children. That was left to maids and nannies, who were... oh wait... women!
You can't tell pseudo-evo-bio "just so" stories to explain a social construct that is not even two centuries old. Go to any agricultural or non-industrial society, and yes, you will see women and men working on different tasks. Some of that division of labor is a response to what is easier to manage when you've got a baby on your back or a toddler at your heels. But in village or tribal society, you do not see women working exclusively on bringing up their children, except maybe when the child is a very young baby, feeding every couple of hours. The rest of the time, women and men are both assuredly also involved in the other work of their societies. Work ("career") and family DO mix. What made it hard, aside from 19th and 20th century social mores, was the nuclear family and suburbanization. It's much harder to mix work and kids when there are no grandmas, aunties, older siblings or other village women to share the load.
Posted by: dug at Dec 2, 2007 11:36:23 AM
You see the rates for divorce and child support for high income males! Divorce ("family law") lawyers can
tell you why this is! If you earn 120k and (you are male) have two kids you will not get full custody
you will pay your ex some alimony (about 700 per month) and about 2k in child support which is
about tax free to the mother. With a 50% divorce rate, any rationale high income male should
invest 1k in a good prenup or forget the whole marriage thing!!!
Posted by: robert at Dec 2, 2007 7:31:42 PM
In and of itself, this paper didn't show a whole lot. There's limited premium for co-habiting straight couples and there's limited premium for co-habiting gay couples. OK, not all that surprising. What would be more interesting is to re-examine the data in about 20 years time and see if a marriage premium for gay men arises as gay marriage (or whatever you want to call it) becomes more prevalent, underlining the effect of specialization on the marriage premium.
As an anecdotal, my partner and I got married two years ago. Subsequently, I quit my job where I was making more than 100k a year so that I could support him at home as he went back to a higher paying, but more demanding career in consulting. We now make more on his one salary than we did before on our two salaries, with a much higher near term potential. Without the legal and cultural bonds of marriage, it would have been quite a bit harder for me to stop my career, knowing the risks involved if we were to break up.
Posted by: RichC at Dec 3, 2007 8:55:07 AM
The first commenter hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that "[T]he difference between legal marriage and cohabitation is that you get to take half the assets with you when you leave...."
One of the incentives for women to marry men who make a good income
is they will be well taken care of in the event of divorce.
As to Robert's comment about the level of alimony, I can tell you
that in the People's Republic of Michigan his estimate is way too low.
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