What Explains the Male Marriage Premium?
What is marriage doing to men to make them earn more?
In the US, married men make 44% more than their uncommitted counterparts. This difference persists across men of the same ethnicity, education, work experience, IQ, and the number of children.
There are three possible explanations:
Being married selects more conscientious, hard-working men. This would be an ability bias.
Marriage makes men more productive. They might work harder, push for promotions, do more hours, perform and behave better. This would be an increase in human capital.
Employers might reward marriage by paying married men more and considering them worthier than another similarly qualified candidate. This would be signalling.
Many economists believe that human capital is responsible for most of the premium. I can only use my intuition, which tells me that human capital probably makes up a signification portion: maybe as much as half. I imagine married men working longer hours and being motivated to fight for that salary rise. Easy for me to imagine: the urge overcame me since getting engaged.
However, there is something to be said for the ability bias explanation. Women almost certainly find ambitious and cooperative men more attractive. The high-IQ man with a Master's degree who plays many hours of video games and lacks social skills isn't as alluring as a similarly educated and intelligent man who gets on with his colleagues and works hard.
The weakest element is signalling because I don't remember asking a candidate if they're married. Nor do I remember ever being asked. It might play some role, but I can't imagine it exceeds 10%.