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Marriage and Money: Variations across the Earnings Distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Western

    (The University of Queensland)

  • Belinda Hewitt

    (The University of Queensland)

Abstract

This paper uses Australian data from the Negotiating the Life Course Project 1997 to investigate the impact of marriage on men’s and women’s earnings. We extend earlier earnings research and investigate whether the effect of marriage is constant for men and women at different points on the conditional earnings distribution by using robust and quantile regression techniques. We find no association between marriage and wages for women, but for men a large and significant premium exists with married men earning around $5,700 per annum more than their unmarried counterparts, after adjusting for human capital, job and family characteristics. Overall, there are very few differences in the association between marriage and earnings for men and women across the wage distribution. Although, importantly, we find that the returns to marriage tend to be smaller and non-significant for men at the top of the distribution than for men in the middle of the distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Western & Belinda Hewitt, 2005. "Marriage and Money: Variations across the Earnings Distribution," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 8(2), pages 163-179, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:8:y:2005:i:2:p:163-179
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marriage; Economics of gender; Wage Level and Structure; Econometric Methods; Single Equation Models; Single Variables; other; Statistical Simulation Methods; Monte Carlo Methods; Bootstrap Methods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • C29 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Other
    • C16 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Econometric and Statistical Methods; Specific Distributions

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