Married guys make more on average, but the arrow of causality could point in either direction or come from something else.
And married women make less, so even assuming the arrow of causality is entirely from marital status to income it’s not clear to me what would happen to your combined income.
Even if your combined income decreases, your combined consumption probably increases, because many goods are non-rivalrous in a marriage situation. See here for a discussion.
Good point, but doesn’t that also apply to unmarried cohabitation?
EDIT: BTW, the bottom of your post says “[...] marriage makes family income go up via the large male marriage premium minus the small female marriage penalty”, which answers my question upthread.
but doesn’t that also apply to unmarried cohabitation?
It also applies in interesting ways to communal living.
In fact, given the magnitude of the effect, the question becomes “Why would anyone ever live alone?”. And the fact that a lot of people do this, by choice, leads into interesting directions...
And married women make less, so even assuming the arrow of causality is entirely from marital status to income it’s not clear to me what would happen to your combined income.
Even if your combined income decreases, your combined consumption probably increases, because many goods are non-rivalrous in a marriage situation. See here for a discussion.
I believe you meant decreases.
I think he means increases. If your consumption decreases, then your standard of living is falling and that doesn’t sound good at all.
Good point, but doesn’t that also apply to unmarried cohabitation?
EDIT: BTW, the bottom of your post says “[...] marriage makes family income go up via the large male marriage premium minus the small female marriage penalty”, which answers my question upthread.
It also applies in interesting ways to communal living.
In fact, given the magnitude of the effect, the question becomes “Why would anyone ever live alone?”. And the fact that a lot of people do this, by choice, leads into interesting directions...
Yes it does, so it’s not really an argument for the act of marriage itself, but on marriage-like behaviors.