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What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

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Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#61

Post by kefka »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #45
kefka wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, is it fair to pay women less? /dons firesuit Discussing marriage, pregnancy, childbearing status or the like is an absolute no-go for employers. So, the ideal solution is to consider all women capable of this. Because of women's protected status of childbearing and leaving/returning, it would seem from a pure business perspective, that women are liabilities that can leave the job at any time and get it back, lega…

From an individual homo economicus perspective, paying people who have heavy life obligations like kids less than people who can work tons of hours is rational. That's why government regulation is important if we want a different result.

> From an individual homo economicus perspective, paying people who have heavy life obligations like kids less than people who can work tons of hours is rational.

Oh absolutely. That's why I'm coming at this from a purely business/economics viewpoint. It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing.

I'd also argue, it's very much true (as in, fact practiced regularly, not a value judgement).

> That's why government regulation is important if we want a different result.

I agree. However, the majority party in office (in the USA) now wants nothing more than to repeal any and every business law and regulation. I do not see us little people with getting these kinds of equality laws passed. If anything, I'd expect that the meager protections women have would arguably be demolished.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#62

Post by freeflight »

Falling3 wrote: post #32
ianai wrote: post #3

They routinely give the men with children/wives the better hours, pay, and whatever else at my work. They just changed several peoples' schedules so that my peer could have Saturdays off with his kid. Contrast that with myself: I have requested the same shift and been denied. I don't have kids. I also have better reasons to be on that shift. In my anecdotal experience, it appears classist. I would file that under 'hu…

What is the part of it that appears classist?

The part where people are treated differently based on their personal procreation/relationship choices? While not strictly classist, it's at very least discriminatory.

Some people just don't want to produce offspring or commit to a traditional marriage for a number of different reasons, some of these even include focusing on work/business. Why should these people "earn" less than people who went with the cookie cutter nuclear family approach?

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#63

Post by linkregister »

sirclueless wrote: post #31
ouid wrote: post #15

There is absolutely no reason to believe that restricting your data to shotgun weddings would control for the things that they claimed to be controlling for.

The number of confounding factors is enormous. 1. The man may be more likely to acquiesce to the wedding if they have a stable income and can support a family. 2. The interested parties on the bride's side may be more interested in pursuing a shotgun wedding if the man has a stable income. 3. The same reasons that lead women to pursue marriage with high-income men may also lead them to pursue pre-marital unprotected…

It's even further compounded by the fact that weddings with preconceived children are unlikely to be genuine shotgun weddings in 2017. The social pressure to reluctantly marry after conception is drastically less intense than it was 60 years ago.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#64

Post by drblast »

In my own case, I'm working and making as much as I do because I'm married and have kids and my wife is a stay-at-home-mom. This is still a very socially acceptable arrangement.

If I weren't married with kids, I'd be a semi-retired snowboard instructor. I am not driven by my career at all. I'm good at it, and I make good money, but I wouldn't otherwise be doing it.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#65

Post by jbmorgado »

It would be interesting to see the number of working hours for married men vs unmarried men. And I guess that data should actually be relatively simple to get.

That could explain some unanswered questions in this article. I.E. If a married men is working more time than an unmarried one, that would be a good indication that a married men felt more pressured to work more after getting married and that was where this premium was mostly coming from.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#66

Post by sctb »

cm2187 wrote: post #40
cm2187 wrote: post #33

Let's read this through the current hysterical liberal lens: unmarried men are unacceptably discriminated! Companies must publish statistics on how they pay married vs unmarried male employees. And they need to train their staff to understand and fight their own bias against unmarried men! The reason for this imbalance can only be outrageous discrimination. Anyone who thinks or suggests otherwise should be silenced.

Ha ha. ...or downvoted!

Please stop violating the guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#67

Post by clarkmoody »

zaroth wrote: post #53

I didn't get much past the 3 hypothesis in TFA because I stopped and had to ask, isn't it obvious that married men earn more because they have to in order to support their families? It seems to me that the biggest factor in earnings is how hard you work. Nothing quite as motivating as needing to support your family... Married men earn more because they have to. There is definitely a secondary effect I have seen thoug…

Your points are encompassed in hypotheses #2 & #3...

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#68

Post by Arizhel »

lemonsqueeze wrote: post #21

Isn't obvious? Higher value men are more likely to get married (He's a "good catch")

That's assuming there's high-value women to be had. From what I hear, that's just not the case in Silicon Valley; the single-male/single-female ratio is horribly skewed. I also hear Seattle is almost as bad. Over in NYC, however, there's scads of single women who can't find a boyfriend.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#69

Post by bluGill »

ianai wrote: post #26
cmdrfred wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say you have "better reasons", childcare is pretty important when you consider all the downstream effects. Are you certain you are objective on this?

Of course I'm not objective. I can't be objective since it's my direct experience. I'm also asking you to take my word on me having the overriding reasons. There's too much going on for me to explain fully in an internet forum. My point is they have two workers vying for the same shift. Overriding corporate policy and business interests would put me on that shift. But they're going with a married guy because he has a…

You say your reasons are more important, but your actions don't seem to back that up. If your reasons were more important you would find a new job - perhaps making less money (it is understood that you might have to work the bad hours for a couple months while looking).

Beyond that, importance is different to everyone. To the company it isn't just your reasons, it is also if they give you the better shift they look anti-family. So they are not only risking you or the other guy quitting, they are also risking dozens of other people deciding this isn't a company they want to work for.

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