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Pastimes : Another Good Reason Not To Be Married -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: flickerful who wrote (2510)	9/14/1998 11:30:00 AM
From: Marty Rubin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6545

"Another Good Reason .To Be Married" BOQ------------------ By GENE KORETZ (Business Week Sep. 21, 1998, pg.26) TO HAVE, TO HOLD, TO PROSPER Why most married men earn more It's well known that married men on average earn 10% to 20% more than their male peers (those with similar ages, educational backgrounds, etc.) who have never tied the knot. Less clear is the reason for this ''marriage premium.'' Many people believe that it's the institution of marriage itself that makes the difference--by inspiring men to settle down and by allowing them more time to devote to their careers rather than to household tasks. Others argue that married men earn more because women tend to select good providers and because men who choose to marry tend to be good workers. In a recent study, economists Donna Ginther of Washington University in St. Louis and Madeline Zavodny of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta throw light on this issue by comparing the wage profiles of a group of married men in ''shotgun weddings''--men whose marriages were followed by a birth within seven months--with the wage histories of similar men whose marriages weren't followed by such births. If marriage itself causes the wage premium, they write, then both groups of men should do equally well. If the premium reflects a selection process prior to marriage, on the other hand, men forced into shotgun weddings should fare worse. (The study uses data from the 1970s, when out-of-wedlock births were less common.) Their finding: Men involved in shotgun weddings don't show the wage advantage that other married men do. In short, the marriage premium appears mainly to reflect a selection process. EOQ----------