Who Benefits from Marriage?

Esfandiar Maasoumi (), Daniel L. Millimet () and Dipanwita Sarkar
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Esfandiar Maasoumi and Esfandiar Maasoumi ()

Emory Economics from Department of Economics, Emory University (Atlanta)

Abstract: The phenomenon that married men earn higher average wages than unmarried men, the so-called marriage premium, is well known. However, the robustness of the marriage premium across the wage distribution and the underlying causes of the marriage premium deserve closer scrutiny. Focusing on the entire wage distribution and employing recently developed semi-nonparametric tests for quantile treatment effects, our findings cast doubt on the robustness of the premium. We find that the premium is explained by selection above the median, whereas a positive premium is obtained only at very low wages. We argue that the causal effect at low wages is probably attributable to employer discrimination.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Date: 2008-10
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Journal Article: Who Benefits from Marriage? (2009)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:emo:wp2003:0807

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