Why do married men earn more: productivity or marriage selection?

Using data from the Current Population Survey March Supplement 1999, this study examines why married men earn more than men who have never married. We find that the marriage wage premium cannot be attributed to the unobservable higher earnings capability of married men. Instead, wage gains from marriage are explained by the degree of specialization within the household. Our findings cast doubt on the argument that the selection of high-ability men into marriage is the cause of the marriage wage premium.     

CAN THE HUMAN CAPITAL APPROACH EXPLAIN LIFE‐CYCLE WAGE DIFFERENTIALS BETWEEN RACES AND SEXES?

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth–1979 cohort (NLSY79), this paper shows the importance of postschool human capital investment in describing both gender and racial wage gaps. The empirical results suggest that male-female wage gaps, regardless of race, are mainly caused by gender differences in the human capital production process; generally, men gain more work experience and therefore have lower marginal costs of human capital production. Black-white lifetime wage differentials could partly result from higher implicit interest rates for blacks, while the deterioration of black males' relative economic status as they age can be attributed to higher depreciation rates of their human capital stock. ( JEL J24, J30, C61)     

EXAMINING THE WAGE DIFFERENTIAL FOR MARRIED AND COHABITING MEN

Wage analyses indicate that married and cohabiting men earn more than do single, noncohabiting men. This article examines the nature of these wage differentials using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. Results indicate that the marital and cohabitation differentials are quite distinct. The higher wage observed for cohabiting men is driven primarily by selection and is eliminated by first differencing, but the higher wage observed for married men (and perhaps long-term cohabiters) arises largely because of differential wage growth. Wages appear to rise more rapidly following marriage.     

THE IMPACT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND HUMAN CAPITAL ON WAGES

Historically, economists have taken the position that psychological capital is either unobservable or immeasurable; thus, heretofore, little evidence has been available on the contribution of psychological capital to wages. Using data drawn from two different waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we offer evidence that psychological capital has both a direct effect—via self-esteem—and an indirect effect—through locus of control—on an individual's real wage. We find a person s wage is more sensitive to changes in self-esteem than to comparable alterations in human capital. Both relative wages and human capital contribute to self-esteem.     

Marriage and the Motherhood Wage Penalty Among African Americans,Hispanics, and Whites

This study draws on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 5,929) to analyze the moderating effects of race and marriage on the motherhood wage penalty. Fixed‐effects models reveal that for Hispanic women, motherhood is not associated with a wage penalty. For African Americans, only married mothers with more than 2 children pay a wage penalty. For Whites, all married mothers pay a wage penalty, as do all never‐married mothers and divorced mothers with 1 or 2 children. These findings imply that racial differences in the motherhood wage penalty persist even for women with similar marital statuses, and they suggest that patterns of racial stratification shape women’s family experiences and labor market outcomes.     

LABOR IMMOBILITY AND THE FORMATION OF GENDER WAGE GAPS IN LOCAL MARKETS

Family ties have an important effect on the wage gap between male and female workers because wives are often more geographically tied to their husband's location, which may not be the best market for the wife's skills. Theory implies a testable inverse relationship between urban size—reflecting labor market size—and male-female wage differentials. Our results indicate that the wage gap between married men and women narrows with urban size. About 17 percent of the wage gap between married men and women can be accounted for by urban size—or, more fundamentally, by geographic immobility due to the family tie constraint.     

Sticky floors and glass ceilings in Latin America

We employ unconditional quantile-decomposition methods to analyze the gender wage gap (gwg) in the urban region of twelve Latin American countries. Using data from harmonized household surveys we decompose the gwg into an explained component (differences in human capital) and an unexplained component (different rates of return to human capital). We find evidence of sticky floors (larger gwg at the tenth percentile than at the median) and glass ceilings (larger gwg at the ninetieth percentile than at the median). The former are more frequent and their magnitude is generally larger. Working women are more educated than working men all along the wage distribution, which partially hides the ‘unexplained’ pay difference. Finally, we find that poorer countries and countries with more income inequality have higher gwg at the tenth percentile of the wage distribution. Richer countries and countries with lower inequality present larger gwg at the ninetieth percent of the wage distribution.     

Occupations,Human Capital and Skills

Economists have long recognized that occupations can be used as proxies for skills in wage regressions. Yet the potential existence of non-market factors such as discrimination and occupational choice (sorting) on the basis of job attributes that are separate from, but potentially correlated with, wages makes occupations an imperfect control for skills. In this paper, we consider whether inter-occupational wage differentials that are unexplained by measured human capital are indeed due to differences in unmeasured skill. Using the National Compensation Survey, a large, nationally-representative dataset on jobs and ten different components of job requirements, we compare the effects on residual wage variation of including occupation indicators and these skill requirements measures. We find that although these skill requirements vary across 3-digit occupations, occupation indicators decrease wage residuals by far more than can be explained by skill alone. This indicates that “controlling for occupation” does not equate to controlling for only these skill measures, but also for other factors. Additionally, we find that there is considerable within-occupation variation in skill requirements, and that the amount of variation is not constant across skill levels. As a result, including occupation indicators in a wage model introduces heteroskedasticity that must be accounted for. We suggest that caution be applied when using and interpreting occupation indicators as controls in wage regressions.     

THE DURABILITY OF HUMAN CAPITAL: SOME NEW EVIDENCE

This paper analyzes the effect of chronological aging, experience, job search, change of job and/or employer, and formal training on the wage growth of a sample of young men. Following the human capital literature, wage growth directly corresponds to human capital and the analysis allows for the assessment of the durability or rate of depreciation of human capital if further investments are not made. The findings suggest that human capital is not very durable, contrary to some previous estimates given in the literature.     

OPTIMAL WAGE TAXATION WHEN HUMAN CAPITAL AND EMPLOYMENT ARE ENDOGENOUS

This paper studies how optimal wage tax conclusions from the classic two‐period life cycle model of human capital accumulation are affected by endogenizing the number of taxpaying workers. In the absence of a corrective policy, young individuals underinvest in human capital from a social perspective because tax premiums for transfers to nonworkers are not actuarially adjusted downward for human capital attainment. A combination of wage taxes and wage subsidies can restore proper price signals. Numerical simulations suggest that even modest employment elasticities can be sufficient to substantially impact the magnitudes and even the signs of optimal wage tax rates. (JEL H21, H3, J24)     

贫困地区农村大龄青年未婚失婚影响因素分析

人口出生性别失衡和婚姻挤压背景下,贫困地区农村男性的大龄未婚问题突出。对冀西北贫困地区农村的专项调查发现。大龄未婚男性仅在所从事职业方面与已婚男性没有明显差别,而在教育、健康、技能、收入、住房、沟通能力等方面均明显劣于已婚男性;个体素质和经济条件较差的男性更可能处于大龄未婚状态,尤其是适婚年龄时的家庭经济条件对征婚的影响尤为显著。总体来看。在性别结构、择偶梯度和婚姻流动性别差异等条件约束下。地区经济发展水平、男性适婚年龄时的家庭经济条件及个体人力资本的全面劣势是农村大龄未婚男性在婚姻市场上竞争失利的决定因素。     

WOMEN'S RISING MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND INCREASED LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION

This paper examines the secular increase in the labor market activity of married women in the United States from 1975 to 1991. The research stresses two findings consistent with the hypothesis that married women increased their attachment to the labor force during this time period. First, increasing duration, not incidence, of married women's employment spells contributes the most to the increase in their rate of employment from 1975 to 1991. Second, the increase in married women's employment over the 1980s is largely due to their increased willingness to work more at any given wage, not their rising wage opportunities. ( JEL J22, J31, J64)     

Auswirkungen Der Familiengründung Auf Den Berufsverlauf Von Männern

In this article we use longitudinal data from the German socio-economic Panel to examine the relationship between parenthood and labour market outcomes for men. Both traditional sociological and economical perspectives predict a positive effect of fatherhood on wages, whereas the spreading idea of a modern fatherhood suggests that, at least, fathers of the younger generation tend to reduce their working hours and thus accept wage reductions. Our focus is on the effect of fatherhood on wage growth, hours worked and interfirm mobility. We find that fathers receive higher wages than married men without children, even when controlling for selection into fatherhood. The positive income effect of fatherhood results from greater on-the-job wage growth. However, fathers are not likely to increase their wage by working longer hours or leaving their current employer for a better paid position.     

Gender differences in tournament and flat-wage schemes: An experimental study

We present a new experiment that explores gender differences in both performance and compensation choices. While most of the previous studies have focused on tournament vs. piece-rate schemes, the originality of our study consists in examining the gender gap in the context of a flat wage scheme. Our data indicate that females exert a significantly higher effort than men in fixed payment schemes. We find however no gender difference in performance under the tournament scheme, due to a combination of two effects. On the one hand, men more significantly increase their effort when switching from a flat wage to a tournament scheme. On the other hand, when switching from the flat wage to a tournament scheme, women have less margin to increase performance since their effort was already relatively high with a flat wage. We also find that females are more likely than males to choose a flat-wage scheme than a tournament. This gap however narrows dramatically when feedback on previous experience is provided.     

UNEMPLOYMENT RISK AND COMPENSATING DIFFERENTIALS IN NEW JERSEY MANUFACTURING

We present evidence that low-skill workers received larger compensating differentials than more skilled workers when facing unanticipated unemployment in an era without unemployment insurance. Using information from surveys of New Jersey workers conducted during the 1880s, we test the theory of compensating wage differentials. We find that workers who faced a higher probability of predictable unemployment received compensating differentials and that the size of the differential differed across industries and skill levels. With few firm- or industry-specific skills, unskilled workers were less subject to "informational capture" than skilled workers who had more but less easily transferable human capital. (JEL N31 )     

WAGE DISCRIMINATION ACROSS ETHNIC GROUPS: EVIDENCE FROM ISRAEL

We investigate wage differentials between ethnic groups in Israel, proposing a new methodology and an illustration based on the latest Israeli census. By using separate wage equations for the various occupations, our methodology allows us to decompose the wage differential into three components: one reflecting human capital differences; one reflecting wage discrimination; and a third indicating occupational segregation. We find that 70 percent of the wage gap is due to segregation, 26 percent to wage discrimination and only 4 percent to human capital differences. Evidence is also found for the existence of duality in the Israeli labor market.     

Race and Gender Differences in Workplace Autonomy: A Research Note

While many studies have focused on race and gender differences in monetary labor market rewards, few studies have used national samples to examine race and gender differences in nonmonetary labor process rewards. Utilizing multivariate analysis on data from the 1993 and 1997 National Employee Survey, the present study examines how race and gender interact in shaping workplace autonomy. We regress an index of autonomy on human capital, structural level variables, and race and gender interaction terms. Findings show that black and white females, relative to white males, fare worse net of controls for human capital and structural level variables. Black males fare worse than white males when controlling for human capital but this disadvantage fails to retain its significant effect when controlling for structural level variables. We conclude that contrary to some beliefs that black females have experienced greater success in the labor market as a result of affirmative action policies, black females remain hindered by the double jeopardy of race and gender.     

ARE WORKERS WILLING TO PAY TO JOIN A BETTER TEAM?

Using data from the Major League Baseball free‐agent market, this study is the first to show that the productivity expected of the team a worker will join produces a significant, negative compensating wage differential. The younger workers in the sample drive this result, trading 25% of their wages to join teams with an expected productivity one standard deviation higher. This investment can be recouped if a reasonable increase in human capital occurs. These results are robust to contract length‐wage simultaneity and indicate that investment in human capital motivates the observed tradeoff, suggesting a new pathway through which human capital accumulation can affect wages. Reliable measures of workers' own past productivity and the productivity expected of a worker's future team provide key advantages to identifying these effects. (JEL J31, J24, M54)     

Economic Factors and Relationship Quality Among Young Couples: Comparing Cohabitation and Marriage

Are economic resources related to relationship quality among young couples, and to what extent does this vary by relationship type? To answer these questions, we estimated regression models predicting respondent reports of conflict and affection in cohabiting and married partner relationships using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97, N = 2,841) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, N = 1,702). We found that economic factors are an important predictor of conflict for both married and cohabiting couples. Affection was particularly responsive to human capital rather than short‐term economic indicators. Economic hardship was associated with more conflict among married and cohabiting couples.     

Cohabitation Premium in Men’s Earnings: Testing the Joint Human Capital Hypothesis

This paper provides new evidence on the increase in wage earnings for men due to marriage and cohabitation (in the literature, commonly referred to as marital and cohabitation wage premiums for men). Using data for a sample of white men from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, the paper shows that even after accounting for potential selection bias there is a cohabitation wage premium for men, albeit smaller than the marriage premium. Our analysis shows that a joint human capital hypothesis (a la Benham in J Polit Econ 82(2, Part 2):S57–71, 1974) with intra-household spillover effects of partner’s education can explain the existence of the wage premiums. Our estimates provide some empirical support for the joint human capital hypothesis.