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What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

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Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#101

Post by scarface74 »

In the U.S., even with the ACA, it's still easier to have health insurance through your job. When I was single and solely responsible for having health insurance, I couldn't as easily jump back and forth between contract jobs and permanent jobs. I couldn't take advantage of high pay with no benefits like I can now.

My wife having good family health insurance has allowed me to be more aggressive about opportunities.

I know other people who own a business and their wife works at low paying government jobs with good benefits.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#102

Post by Agathe »

Suggested reading related to the topic: Smart & Sexy by R. Kaynes (https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Sexy-Evolutionary-Underpinnings...)

I wonder how he would comment this study...

- higher IQ men are more likely to get married (because a higher IQ gives them an advantage hence they are more desirable to women), and higher IQ men earn more

- married men have more pressure to dedicate their time and effort to provide for their family, hence they end up earning more

- married men have more pressure and make different career choices to better provide for their family

- this is a small leftover from a past, more conservative, more family oriented society (before women entered the workforce) which valued married men more (because more useful to society)

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#103

Post by [deleted] »

zaroth wrote: post #97
drblast wrote: post #64

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.

Right! I guess economically you are "more productive" than your unmarried counterpart but it's important to note this isn't the result of natural ability manifesting in greater likelihood of being selected by a partner (utter nonsense) but rather, now that you have a partner you have a responsibility to someone else to maximize your income.

[deleted]

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#104

Post by Oxitendwe »

antisthenes wrote: post #48
Oxitendwe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you were denied, he has standing to ask for time off (his kid) and you don't. Having children is incredibly important to society at large and it makes sense incentivize it, especially at the expense of people who don't have any yet. When you have kids, you will also have access to these perks.

Guess I'll just start lying about having a kid then.

Is your imaginary kid going to pay into social security? Pay taxes for the roads you drive on? Take up arms to defend your country? If not, then you have no standing to complain when people who contribute more than you are rewarded more than you.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#105

Post by Grustaf »

geebee wrote: post #98
Grustaf wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them. If women would be penalised for taking time off they would be less inclined to have children, at least if they have a well paying job. The lo…

It is a problem. In some ways, this is why I'm ok with the government setting the rules, sometimes fairly strict ones. One example might be laws limiting business hours, or laws the make a certain amount of vacation leave mandatory. They violate individual freedom, but they may also make it possible for people to close shop or take a vacation. Sweden recognized this problem - it created very generous programs for wom…

Well Sweden doesn't really have the same views on "individual freedom" as the US, but even here a lot of people were upset at the "mandatory" 3 months to be taken by the father when it was instituted.

Even as a fairly libertarian person, I didn't mind it, since it's just an option, nobody's forcing anyone to take it. And nudging fathers to take a more active role in child rearing is definitely a good investment for society, even economically speaking.

I'm not sure it had much of an effect though, at least in my circles I haven't noticed any big shift in paternal leave taking. And I must say that at certainly for the last 10 years there's been no stigma at all around it, again in my circles.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#106

Post by DonHopkins »

cm2187 wrote: post #76
sctb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop violating the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

No I think in this case my comment was in the line as it was about silencing diverging opinions which I think the downvoting illustrates. I wouldn't dare violating the guideline but your fervent vigilance is much appreciated!

As long as you're complaining about being silenced, why don't you not be silent by providing me with a link to the proof that I asked you for, but you silently ignored, please?

Asking for proof is not silencing, even if you decide on your own to go silent after I asked for proof. Your silence on the topic of proof speaks loudly.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#107

Post by TulliusCicero »

Grustaf wrote: post #93
kefka wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 gover…

>It's stark, dehumanizing, and pretty damned depressing Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them. If women would be penalised for taking time off they would be less inclined to have children, at least if they have a well paying job. The lo…

> Most of all it's pretty short sighted and myopic. Even from a strictly economical perspective, and assuming all of the above is correct, we need new generations of people to be born, and someone needs to take care of them.

Right, it's a tragedy of the commons type situation. Each individual actor (business) is incentivized to focus on just what solely benefits them the most, but if every actor does that, everyone ends up losing.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#108

Post by cmdrfred »

zaroth wrote: post #97
drblast wrote: post #64

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.

Right! I guess economically you are "more productive" than your unmarried counterpart but it's important to note this isn't the result of natural ability manifesting in greater likelihood of being selected by a partner (utter nonsense) but rather, now that you have a partner you have a responsibility to someone else to maximize your income.

I'll be married myself in a month and the mere thought of children at some point in the future has caused me to begin accepting any overtime offered to me. I can't imagine a more powerful motivator except a gun to my head.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#109

Post by ionised »

Oxitendwe wrote: post #104
antisthenes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess I'll just start lying about having a kid then.

Is your imaginary kid going to pay into social security? Pay taxes for the roads you drive on? Take up arms to defend your country? If not, then you have no standing to complain when people who contribute more than you are rewarded more than you.

> when people who contribute more than you are rewarded more than you

This is one of the shittiest attitudes I've seen on HN in a while.

Having a child is not in itself something that qualifies as a greater contribution to the species than anything anyone without children can make.

Honestly this is the weirdest kind of child-worship.

Re: What Is the Male Marriage Premium?

#110

Post by AstralStorm »

rlpb wrote: post #44

Have they controlled for age? Or is that included in their claim of having controlled for experience? Older men are more likely to be married (since finding a partner takes a variable amount of time, and the marriage rate is higher than the divorce rate). And salaries also tend to go up over time as employees build their careers. This would of course be part of the author's "Explanation #1: Ability bias.". I'm just s…

Yes, it is mentioned further in the series they have controlled for age. How effective that control was is not described. I'd like a full methodology.
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