Tag Archives: marriage

A Marriage Premium for Men

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When economists talk about returns to marriage, they usually refer to women. There is good evidence that women, on average, ‘earn’ from marrying, through the husband’s higher wage. There is even a return to education that women can reap through marriage: highly educated women meet highly educated men (at university for example) i.e. the men who earn more than the less educated. (In some parts of the world, this will be the only return to education women will ever reap; nada with working outside the home.)

The news is that men, too, earn a marriage premium. But they earn it themselves. Here is how the story goes. Men who wish to marry make an effort in their job and by the time they marry, they actually have managed to improve their earnings. Marriage is enticing, and working towards it improves men’s professional and economic status. “If there were no returns to career choices in the marriage market, men would tend to work less, study less, and choose blue-collar jobs over white-collar jobs” writes Eric Gould who studied the subject.

There is of course the risk that you pick up the fact that more prosperous men marry more easily anyway (and got prosperous by other motivations). But Eric Gould controlled for this issue and managed to strip out the domino chain that links the prospect of marriage to effort rather than the other way round. Only pitfall: the effect only works for average and lower earning men; highly earning men do not improve themselves by dreaming about marriage, they are already motivated.

Are you ‘well matched’ with your partner? 5 Shades of Love

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What is a good match? Which couples are ‘meant for each other’? I would assume that most people agree that a good match is one where the partners love each other. Very much.

But how can we get at the ‘love’ concept? With economics, of all sciences?

Lo and behold, one extra daring economist has tried to capture ‘love’ in economic terms. Some of you may have guessed: Gary Becker. Inspired by his writings, here are 5 aspects of love that economists understand.

Love is…

  1. Caring about the partner. This is best measured as altruism, a concept that economists are, on average, fairly familiar with. In economic terms, it means, my happiness (“utility”) improves, if my partner’s happiness improves.
  2. Trust. If you two really care for each other, you don’t have to watch your back that much. Your partner already will.
  3. Sharing and generosity. If your partner is happy about you being happy, it doesn’t matter so much if he eats the last piece of cake or if you do. He’ll be (nearly) equally happy.
  4. Enjoying things more if consumed together. If you really care for each other, you enjoy a joint dinner more than if each person eats in her own time. Dinner has altogether a new quality; it becomes hard to accept a separate dinner as a valid meal. The same is true for other items, travel, parties, reading a book, even trying out new fashion.
  5. Enjoying the same things. Because of 4, it also makes sense if you like the same things. The same books, countries, dinners and dinner times, places…

If you can capture love in economic terms, it also means you can measure it.

If you want to know how well you are matched, here are questions you should ask: 1) Is your partner happy, if you are happy? 2) Can you trust him; does he look out for your advantage as much as his? 3) How does he share whatever is scarce – time, cake, money? 4) How much more do you enjoy dinner when you are together rather than dinner alone?

And, finally 5) How long does it take to agree on the theatre play you are going to watch, or the kind of picture you are going to hang?

The answer to these will be telling…

Work After Marriage

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I know quite a few couples where the woman gave up her career after the first kids arrived. In most of these cases, the woman was better educated than her husband and had better grades and prospects of earnings. Still, the women gave up work and stayed home. A pity for the economy, I thought at the time. The families, as well as the country would have been richer, had these women worked. Some returned to work when the children entered school, but their career path was disrupted once and for all.

I always assumed their choice to stay home was voluntary. But recently another fact about them struck me: with the exception of one couple, they all live in the countryside.  And the one wife that lives in the city was actually the first to return to work.

Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn digged up more data on this and found that dual career couples tend to choose to live in cities. A metropolitan area holds the key for more job prospects for both partners.

Marriage stability & the In-laws

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Here’s the weirdest divorce statistic I have come across in a while: when husbands have a good relationship with their in-laws, divorce probability sinks by 20percent. When, instead, the wife has a good relationship with her in-laws, the divorce probability rises by 20percent. – What the heck?

Contrary to the researchers I don’t believe that reporting of ‘a good In-law relationship’ by the wife also means she suffers from meddling In-laws. I doubt she would have called the relationship good then.

I rather fear that darker forces of nature are at work here. A woman can only have so many kids in a life. I have heard of cases of 14, but say 8 is more like the natural upper boundary. A man, however, can have nearly unlimited amounts of kids – as long as he involves more than one woman. So, the parents of the wife have an evolutionary interest embedded in their genes that prompts them to foster the stability and wellbeing of their daughter’s marriage. Because the kids she will have in this marriage are likely all the kids she’ll ever have; she can certainly not increase the number of kids infinitely by divorcing and re-marrying younger men. It’s the opposite for a man: in theory, he can increase his prospect of children by divorcing and re-marrying a younger woman. Somewhere his parents must also ‘know’ this in their genes and have an evolutionary urge, however little, to nudge their son along…

So, when in doubt, celebrate the next holiday at her parents’ rather than his.. 

I want my soulmate NOW! Fast!

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Despite all the enlightenment we have provided here already – finding The One can be a messy, arduous and possibly slow process. For the busy singles of today; is there any way of speeding it up, or even delegating part of it?  – This story may ring familiar.

Noah is a senior government advisor working 11 hour days. While he enjoys being part of the inner circle around his country’s head of government, he dreads not having time for dates. He had intended to marry by the age of 30. Now, aged 35, he is starting to worry. He has high demands for the type of woman he wants to marry, such as a success level similar to his. Either way, there will be little time for dates during the next year too. Elections are looming and a crisis has weakened the country. Noah’s job gets irresistibly interesting and important just at a time when the prospect of (not) settling down gives him sleepless nights.

Noah gives up and embraces the uncoolness of signing up with a traditional dating advisor. While he does not enjoy the soul-baring during the initial meetings with the advisor, he does appreciate that a part of the effort is now delegated. Actual dates are pre-selected with insight, and Noah learns more on fewer dates. Within a year, he finds his significant other, a cute and successful health trust CEO, just a year younger than himself.

The idea is as old as human interaction: intermediators or middlemen. (Traders, bargainers, heralds, other communicators…and matchmakers). They can work well in any ‘market’. Some recent Nobel prize winners have shown they can do wonders in the labor market.  The middlemen’s role is to specialize in the search, and the sounding of a partner to an extent. They help bridge the information deficit between the searching parties. And because they are specialized, they develop expertise in doing this, they can do it faster, and with a wider reach.

There is one condition: there need to be many of them who compete with each other. This ensures that they try to be ever better and ever more productive.

Dating agencies improve everyone’s luck simply because every client improves every other client’s luck by being there. Every individual search effort is multiplied through the agency and benefits others. The economists who found this out even suggested the state subsidize ‘computerized dating agencies’ (the article predates online dating) for the benefit of all!

The Feat of the Cheat

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Sadly, cheating happens. Media earn very well from reports on celebrity cheating. Both men and women are guilty, if in different shares. Why people cheat is open to debate and we, frankly, don’t know. But economists can say something about what happens to cheats – the feat of the cheat.

A marriage is an investment. A huge investment, usually into monogamy among other things, consciously foregoing other opportunities. A cheater renounces that investment while the other party still pays dues. Problem is, the other party usually suspects.

Economists call what happens next the ‘hold-up’ problem. Suspicion, lack of trust in a joint undertaking leads to hold-up of own contributions. Like attention, time, chores, love, honesty, loyalty….or all of these. The more likely someone is to cheat, the more likely he will be missing any of the above.

What can be done? The best prevention of this is to make the marital commitment rock-solid from the start. Different cultures have experimented differently, but remedies include wedding witnesses (with whom reputation can be lost), joint property, the administrative costs of dissolving a civil marriage, prohibition of divorce of catholic marriages, up to more draconian punishments under sharia (which were probably never meant to be carried out in the first place, but to threaten people into compliance).

A commitment ‘written in stone’ has the opposite effect to a hold-up: opening up of the partners pays. Giving more attention, time, chores, love, you name it – cannot be lost. What happens in the marriage stays in the marriage – rather than in Vegas..

Epiphany Special: Top 5 Factors for a Happy Marriage with Kids

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As a sequel to last year’s Christmas Special, we revisit the topic of children and marriage. What do kids do to a relationship?  – Brad Wilcox and friends at U Virginia know more. Yes, it is still true, that, on average, parenthood decreases marital happiness. Not overall happiness, but marital happiness. Yet, a significant minority of 35% remain happy in their marriage, or even see their marital happiness increase after children arrive. In the last Special, we looked at marital factors that differ for these folks. Today we look at the top 5 social aspects:

1.      Education. Education. Education. College-educated parents have more stable and happier marriages than their peers with lower education. The researchers reckon that stronger social skills and better money may be the underlying reasons. I beg to differ; especially as the Money factor is measured separately. In my humble opinion, higher education confers a stronger sense of empowerment and confidence in one’s own skills to solve problems.

2.       Money. Income does not matter for marital happiness. But financial stress does. Spouses with high consumer debt are likely not very happy in their marriage.

3.       Sharing chores and childcare. Mothers and fathers that share the housework and the childcare equally report higher marital happiness.

4.       Women working as much as they want, but not more. Mothers who work more hours than they would like to report lower happiness in their marriage.

5.       A (safety) net of friends and family. Extended family, and close friends can act as ‘insurance’ and alleviate some acute issues, for example regarding finances or childcare. They can also be a source of knowledge or education and role modeling. But: the influence can also go the other way. Family or friends that foster a critical attitude between the spouses or are bad role models will endanger marital happiness.

 

Lucky 13

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Dear Readers

Happy New Year 2013! Dr de Bergerac’s new year resolution is to blog weekly now. Every Friday you will find a new comment or article or letter informed  by LoveOnomics. You are also welcome to contribute – all sensible comments will be posted, and the most qualified commentators will be invited as guest bloggers. Howzat.

Let’s start by keeping the resolution today and offer some insights on a slippery topic: doubts before marriage.  The Washington Post shows how current the topic is.  What do Economists think?

Doubts clearly express incomplete information: uncertainty about the success prospects of the marriage, as one cannot look into the future. Note that I said incomplete information, not insufficient. Information will always be incomplete; the question is whether it is sufficient. As a matter of fact, it has been shown statistically that most people acquire sufficient information about both the date and the dating market after dating 12 people. If Mr or Ms Doubtful is number 13, and tops the other 12 under any perspective, then he or she is very likely Mr Right.

If not, you need to keep searching. Or rather – pick the One out of the line-up of 13 that tops the list.

Best of luck for this lucky year, and keep in touch!

To call or not to call, that is the question.

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onthephone

Imagine you had a pleasant date and hope to see that person again. Should you call? – Let’s look at it from the economist’s perspective.

A phone call is an effort, an investment with a risk attached like all investments: you might earn the reward of a delighted reaction and indeed, a repeat encounter. Or you might experience various degrees of failure: lack of interest, a cold reception, or worst, a clear signal of refusal. Weighing the reward against the risk, you may think that on balance it’s not worth it.

This is because we tend to over-value losses compared to wins. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky showed in a Nobel Prize winning study that people perceive loss of a certain object as hurting more strongly than the joy coming from winning that same object. The loss or gain is objectively the same, but the human psyche values it differently according to the original situation. Human beings have a tendency to stick to the status quo, and deviations, whether up or down, always have a cost. This discounts gains a bit, and adds to losses. In the context of weighing the risks and benefits of calling a date, this means that most people (if not all) tend to judge them somewhat too pessimistically on balance.

Therefore, our first recommendation: unless you are sure of a refusal, take the risk of calling. The pain of refusal is usually less than imagined. Here, being confident is usually more realistic.

Let’s look at what people actually do. Two large-scale surveys have asked women and men about their calling habits and any successes after dates the dating agency ‘Just Lunch’ asked 38,912 singles, and match.com surveyed 5,000 daters. Here is what they found. Women seem to line with Kahneman and friends: 49% of them never call or expect the man to call first. 20% call two days later, while 15% call the next day. On the other hand, dating men are more courageous: 45% of them say they call the next day, 32% call two days later, and 14% call three days later.

That’s 91% of men calling after a date, wow. Most dating men seem to have overcome the deceptions of loss aversion, congratulations. A small catch with these survey answers is that they leave out those who never or very rarely date. Those who actually have a date to ponder about are potentially a more courageous lot than the non-dating. Anyway, as a bottom line, the figure is quite encouraging.

What about follow-up dates after calling? With such a high calling rate of men, it doesn’t surprise that those who don’t call within 24h rarely arrange for a follow-up date: only 1 in 8.

Therefore, our second recommendation: as a woman, don’t waste too much hope on the chaps that don’t even text within the first 24h, or 48h max. Don’t put all your eggs into one basket and keep dating other people.

 

 

Christmas Special: Kids and Relationships

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What do kids do to a relationship? Will your marriage be better or worse for it?  – Recent research published by W. Bradford Wilcox and others at the University of Virginia digged out interesting findings. It turns out, that, on average, parenthood decreases marital happiness. Not overall happiness, but marital happiness. Yet, a significant minority of 35% (about the share of the winning parties in the recent elections in North Africa) remain happy in their marriage, or even see their marital happiness increase after children arrive.

What do these folks do differently? Here is a quick account of their top 6 relationship factors:

1.       A happy and active sex life. In terms impact, this is the strongest factor. “Sexually satisfied wives enjoy a 43-percentage-point premium in the odds of being very happy in their marriages, and sexually satisfied husbands enjoy a 46-percentage-point premium in marital happiness.”

2.       Thinking ‘we’ instead of ‘me’. Married parents who score above average in terms of commitment are at least 45 percentage points more likely to report being “very happy” in their marriages, and 23 percentage points less likely to be prone to divorce.   ‘Commitment’ measures the extent to which spouses see their relationship in terms of “we” versus “me,” the importance they attach to their relationship, their conviction that a better relationship with someone else does not exist, and their desire to stay in the relationship “no matter what rough times we encounter.”

3.       Random acts of kindness. Married parents who are generous with each other —both in terms of giving and receiving in a spirit of generosity—are significantly more likely to report that they are ‘very happy’ in their marriage. Generosity is defined as the virtue of giving good things to [one’s spouse] freely and abundantly, and encompasses small acts of service (e.g., making coffee for one’s spouse in the morning), the expression of affection, displays of respect, and a willingness to “forgive him/her for mistakes and failings.”

4.       A family-centered value system. Independent of religion, couples who value family life, and having and rearing children, and always did, are obviously: happier parents.

5.       Good friends and peers who share the experience of parenthood. “Research suggests that parents who have friends or peer support groups with whom they can talk about the challenges of parenthood do markedly better than parents who go it alone.”  But the influence of family and friends can be for good or ill.  Family and friends who encourage strife or who give a bad example are no support for married parents.  On the other hand, couples who experience high levels of support from family and friends for their marriage also report a more happy marriage. This factor ranks no. 5 for women, but is not in the top five for husbands.

6.       Shared and practiced religion. Couples who attend religious services together are more happy parents. Couples who subjectively feel ‘God at the center’ of their marriage are even more happy. “Shared religious attendance is linked to an increase of more than 3 percentage points that a parent is very happy in marriage, and to a decrease of more than 3 percentage points that a parent is prone to separation or divorce.” (These percentages increase 8-fold for couples who see a divine presence in their marriage.) – It strikes me that couples with young children who attend services together also have either (i) very well behaved children or (ii) a flexible solution for childcare.  – This factor ranks no. 5 for husbands but is not among the top five for wives.

These are the top 6 relationship factors that make husbands and wives happier parents. Our next special will look at the top social factors with the same influence…stay tuned!

Happy Xmas tide until then!