By Halley Hu
Married men have historically earned higher wages than single men. One of the most prominent explanations for this phenomenon is the theory of intra-household specialization. However, the marriage premium was found to be decreasing up until the early 90’s. In our paper, we have re-examined the wage premium using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Our analysis focuses on an early period (1990-1992) and a later period (2002-2006). Our results suggest that the marital wage premium has actually been increasing over time, but that specialization does not do an adequate job of explaining this result.
Advisor: Marjorie McElroy
