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Who Benefits from Marriage?

Author

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  • Esfandiar Maasoumi
  • Daniel L. Millimet
  • Dipanwita Sarkar

Abstract

The phenomenon that married men earn higher average wages than unmarried men – the marriage premium – is well known. However, the robustness of the premium across the wage distribution and the underlying causes of the marriage premium are unclear. Focusing on the entire wage distribution and employing recently developed semi‐non‐parametric 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. The causal effect at low wages may be attributable to employer discrimination.

Suggested Citation

  • Esfandiar Maasoumi & Daniel L. Millimet & Dipanwita Sarkar, 2009. "Who Benefits from Marriage?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 1-33, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:obuest:v:71:y:2009:i:1:p:1-33
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0084.2008.00515.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Ozkan Eren & Daniel L. Millimet, 2008. "Time to learn? The organizational structure of schools and student achievement," Studies in Empirical Economics, in: Christian Dustmann & Bernd Fitzenberger & Stephen Machin (ed.), The Economics of Education and Training, pages 47-78, Springer.
    2. Dipanwita Sarkar & Jayanta Sarkar, 2017. "What Does Attending Early Childhood Program Mean for Child Health in India?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(11), pages 1366-1379, November.
    3. Chen, Yuanyuan & Wang, Le & Zhang, Min, 2017. "Informal Search, Bad Search? The Effects of Job Search Method on Wages among Rural Migrants in Urban China," IZA Discussion Papers 11058, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Almas Heshmati & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Guanghua Wan, 2019. "An Analysis of the Determinants of Household Consumption Expenditure and Poverty in India," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-27, September.
    5. Dipanwita Sarkar & Michael Kidd, 2016. "The impact of endogenous occupational attainment on native-migrant wage distributions," QuBE Working Papers 042, QUT Business School.
    6. Daniel L. Millimet & Michael Nieswiadomy & Daniel Slottje, 2010. "Detailed Estimation Of Worklife Expectancy For The Measurement Of Human Capital: Accounting For Marriage And Children," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 339-361, April.
    7. Wang, Le, 2013. "Estimating returns to education when the IV sample is selective," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 74-85.
    8. Sean de Hoon & Renske Keizer & Pearl Dykstra, 2015. "The Male Marriage Wage Premium in Cross-National Perspective," LIS Working papers 642, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    9. Thomas Gall & Roland Amann, 2006. "How (not) to Choose Peers in Studying Groups," Working Papers 2006.79, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    10. McConnell, Brendon & Valladares-Esteban, Arnau, 2023. "Do Employers Positively Discriminate Married Workers?," Economics Working Paper Series 2305, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    11. Chi, Miao & Drewianka, Scott, 2014. "How much is a green card worth? Evidence from Mexican men who marry women born in the U.S," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 103-116.
    12. Yuanyuan Chen & Le Wang & Min Zhang, 2018. "Informal search, bad search?: the effects of job search method on wages among rural migrants in urban China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 837-876, July.
    13. Ozkan Eren & Daniel J. Henderson, 2008. "The impact of homework on student achievement," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 11(2), pages 326-348, July.

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