Wednesday, August 7, 2002
Do married men really make more money?
A story published today by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that if
you want to make the highest wages, you'd best be a married man. That's the
conclusion of two analysts - both unmarried - at the Federal Reserve Bank of
St. Louis.
"We're not attempting to explain it," said Abbigail Chiodo, co-author of
"For Love or Money: Why Married Men Make More," printed in one of the bank's
publications.
The article offered one solution to the puzzle: "Married men tend to make
more money because the traits that make a man a high wage earner are also
the traits that make him a good marriage partner."
Chiodo, 23, said she and her co-author, Michael T. Owyang, 32, were struck
by several recent studies showing "that men with higher earnings potential
are more apt to get married and stay married."
In fact, those analyses show that married men, on average, make about 11
percent more than never-married men. Divorced men fall in between.
Ray Hilgert, professor emeritus of Washington University's Olin School of
Business, knew the gist of the article immediately: "Let me guess. Married
men make more?"
The reason, Hilgert said, could be that upper-level managers look for people
who demonstrate that they're responsible about their obligations. Being
married and having children can contribute subtly to a person's unwritten
resume, he said.
"Men may have less of a tendency to rock the boat when they have a family,
because they have to be dependable," Hilgert said.
"I'd never thought about men making more money after they get married, but
it makes sense when you think about it," Chiodo said.
Chiodo and Owyang reviewed about a dozen studies for their article, which
first ran in the April edition of "Regional Economist." The story also was
picked up in the latest issue of BusinessWeek.
