Marriage and Work Among Prime-Age Men

Adam Blandin, John Jones and Fang Yang

No 2313, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Abstract: Married men work more hours than men who have never been married. Fixed effect regressions reveal that part of this gap is attributable to an increase in work around the time of marriage. Two potential explanations for the increase are: (i) men hit by positive labor market shocks are more likely to marry; and (ii) marriage leads men to work more hours. Using a structural life-cycle model, we find that marriage substantially increases male hours of work. Counterfactual simulations suggest that declining marriage rates account for roughly half of the fall in prime-age male hours observed over recent decades.

Keywords: labor supply; family structure; marriage; marital wage premium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D15 J1 J22 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68
Date: 2023-08-29, Revised 2025-12-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:feddwp:96638

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DOI: 10.24149/wp2313r1

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