Why don't more women get married and stay married? For almost the last half century, two remarkable trends in family life have been the decline of marriage and the increase in female participation in the labor force. Clearly, there seems to be a strong positive correlation between the two factors as women tend to marry later or remain single if having a family means a decrease in their future labor time, their future wages, and their marriage possibilities. Additionally, as the wage inequality gap widens along with a decrease in the mean wage of men, more men will become "unsuitable breadwinners," divorce probabilities will reach new heights and information about future matches uncertain. Furthermore, the rise of the female wage and education level also contributes to the decrease in marriage rates. This paper will center on these three topics to answer the question stated in the beginning of this paragraph.
The first part of this paper will focus around the increase in the gap of
male wage inequality which leads to a decline in the supply of marriageable
men, and thus lower marriage rates. The second part will look at the trend
of an increasing female labor force participants that leads to marital instability.
The third part will look at the increase in the economic status of women,
which alongside the decrease in the supply of marriageable men, further
decrease marriage rates. Finally, the conclusion suggests some possible
policy actions pursuable by the government to create some incentives toward
marriage.
Male Wage Inequality
Results from studies show that male wage inequality has large effects on
females' marriage decision making. Naturally, most people would assume that
the only factor which contributes to the decrease in marriage rates are
employment opportunities and the decrease in returns to labors. However,
marriage today is no longer limited to mutual affections but is also another
form of investment. Those men with higher income levels will be more demanded
while those who are in the bottom of the wage level are considered unmarriageable.
The rise in female participation in the labor force explains only part of
the marriage story. Another possible explanation for the declining marriage
rates is the decline in the supply of marriageable men due to their inability
to match the economic requirement.
The evidence presented in the Loughran article supports the idea that female
search behavior accounts for a large part in the marriage story. The reason
being that rising male wage inequality increases the returns to marital
search, and thus results in the increases in search duration while marriage
rates decline. This increase in inequality may account for up to 30% of
the overall decline in marriages rates in the last few decades. Moreover,
when there is higher male inequality, those in the beginning of the line
will also delay marriage because of their huge demand as marital prospects.
The larger the level of inequality, the more important wage level becomes
for selecting marriage prospects.
Assuming that marriage leads to fertility, then marriage is extremely costly
for women today and that is compensated by finding a husband with greater
wage levels. Traditionally, a woman stays home looking after the kids and
overlook the household to compensate for her low wages outside of the home.
This is especially true for those women with low wages and productivity
level. However, as wage gap between male and female begins to converge and
productivity of women begin to rise (discuss below), marriage becomes extremely
time intensive and costly for women. This is especially true for women with
high productivity levels.
The change in the returns to experience for women causes a further delay
in the timing of marriage and marital position. More women choose to remain
single and accumulate human capital in order to offset the risk of marrying
someone in the lower end of the wage curve. Thus, more women tend to marry
later than they did in the past unless they found a marital prospect in
the higher end of the wage inequality. This is supported by the fact that
the labor supply numbers for women are higher when there are positive returns
to experience for women. Thus, the evidence is supportive of the idea that
male wage inequality increases the incentives for women to search longer
and thus decrease marriage rates.
Marital Stability
Over most of the twentieth century, the U.S. has witnessed considerable
increases in divorce rates. Again, most people assume that this phenomenon
is also a direct result of the increase in female participation in the labor
force. However, this is not the case since divorce rates ceased to increase
despite the fact that female participation continues to rise since the 1980s.
In fact, in recent years, there seems to be benefit between marital stability
and married women's market participation. Perhaps, the effect of married
women's market work on marital stability has been declining and thus the
relationship between the two factors has changed; therefore, it appears
that women's market work can no longer be held culpable for the breaking
up of American families.
For the most part, it is certain that women's participation has a destabilizing
effect on marriage; however, the question is how significant is the relationship
between marital instability and women's work. Sen argues in his article
that when considering the relationship between marriage and women's labor
supply, Becker's model offers a good explanation of the relationship. He
argues that the most important aspect of this model is that marital stability
depends on gains from marriage. As utility from marriage outweigh the utilities
in the single state, people will be less likely to divorce. Becker further
argues that the ideal situation where such gains can occur is from specialization
within marriage, or in other words, with the wife specializing in household
work and the husband in market work. Alternatively, it could be argued that
a woman who specializes in the household has poor alternating options, and
is hence more likely to tolerate an unhappy marriage. While on the other
hand, women's participation in the labor force means increases in their
earning ability and thus offers opportunities to leave an unhappy marriage.
Hence, divorce rates are high because women can terminate an unsatisfactory
marriage if they participate in the labor force.
Female Headship and the possibility of Marrying Down?
The fundamental reason for the rise of female headship is to a significant degree the result of the decrease in the ratio of marriageable males. Men as a group have suffered a market decline in their economic and social status in the past quarter century. There are indications that falling mean incomes and rising within-group earnings inequality are responsible for shaving an average of 3.54 percentage points of the marriage rate since 1977 to 1999. The decline in mean wage also suggests that there are even less marriageable male than in the past.
Naturally, the decline in economic status of the men as a group is not the
only explanation for female headship, women has, as a group, also progressed
significantly. The changing roles of women have further increased female
headship and exacerbated the declining marriage trend. Average earnings
of female ages twenty-two to thirty-four in 1977 were equal to 29 percent
of median household income. By 2001 average income for this group was 39
percent of median household income. In brief, the data provide powerful
evidence that a young woman's prospects of finding a mate with an acceptable
level of income are considerably worse today than in the past.
Assuming that education is also a key factor in determining future returns
to wage, the flow of well educated women produced each year also exceeds
that of well educated men, and the gap is likely to keep on increasing.
In the U.S., alone, there are two million more women with college degrees
than there are in men with college degrees. And when considering educational
performances, females are not only catching up at the secondary level, generally,
they also have much less variance than their male counterparts. In national
evaluations of reading, math, and science, women had lower variance than
men all in subjects. The average scores of all national exams have improved
over the last quarter century; however, female averages have clearly risen
much faster than male averages. This demographic shift has profound implications
on marriage in the future.
In terms of marriage, either more women will have to marry men with lower
levels of education or few women will choose not to marry. This choice is
now being made in a current group in the U.S.: African-American women. Black
female marriage rates have fallen significantly since the 1960s. Currently,
in the age bracket of twenty-five to forty-four, black females with at least
some college outnumber their male counterparts by about 3 million. This
may also explain why black women are marrying white men at a higher rate
in the past few decades.
Conclusion
The issue of marital instability may be accountable by the increases in
women's participation in the labor force. However, one must take into account
that Becker's model is only one of the many explanations available. In terms
of the decreasing marriage rates, as the gap widens within the male wage
inequality, it will take women longer and longer to assess their marital
prospect and thereby delay marriage. Additionally, assuming that education
is a good indicator of one's future wage level, there were 25 percent more
college-educated women than men graduating in the 1990s, meaning women will
become the breadwinners of society and as a result, marriage rates will
only continue to fall. If this trend continues, there will have to be a
decrease in the marriage rate for well-educated women, as has occurred in
the black community, or they will have to marry down. The impact of marrying
down is a significant change in the workplace environment. More men will
stay home and takeover the role of child-rearing while women will work outside.
This shift of men into household work and childrearing will require a change
in social attitudes toward masculinity and childrearing. Thus, in order
to lessen the search duration of women because of economic reasons, the
government should focus on redesigning welfare programs and the tax code
so as to strengthen incentives to marriage.
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