Is There an Economic Bar to Marriage?

Is there an "economic bar" to marriage? To answer this question, try this thought experiment. Who would you rather marry: someone who lives on a couch in his/her parents' basement, or someone who has a job with health insurance and a home of his/her own? If you would rather marry the person with health insurance and a home, then yes, Virginia, there is an economic bar to marriage. We can all feel the bar, but there have been few empirical studies to determine whether facts support our feelings.

Until now. A recent study in Demography sets out to describe the economic bar to marriage and tests whether those who meet the bar are more likely to marry than those who do not. Researchers defined the bar as these seven accomplishments: 1) having private health insurance; 2) experiencing earnings growth in the past 15 months; 3) homeownership; 4) having a bank account; 5) being employed; 6) not experiencing any material hardship in the past year (hardship is defined as not being able to pay rent or mortgage, having utilities cut off, and/or being evicted); and 7) not receiving public assistance in the past month. Those who scored a four out of seven were defined as meeting the economic bar.

Analyzing three waves of the Building Strong Families dataset, the researchers determined how many unmarried parents in their 20s got married after a 15 and 36 month time period, controlling for whether or not they met the economic bar. Among study respondents, one or the other parent passed the bar (had a score of 4 or higher) in 67 percent of the couples. Only the mother passed the bar in 28 percent of couples, and only the father in 48 percent of couples. Both parents passed the bar in 14 percent of couples.

Those who met the bar were more likely to have gotten married after 15 and 36 months, the study found. "At both time points, using the either parent definition of the bar, couples who met the bar were significantly more likely to marry than couples who did not meet the bar." The study also found that "meeting the both-parent bar was associated with larger increases in marriage than meeting the either-parent bar." Meeting the mother-only bar also boosted marriage, although not as much as meeting the father-only bar. "Our findings suggest that father's economic contributions may be more important than mother's in determining marriage entry. Nevertheless...the bar's association with marriage was not driven solely by the father's contribution," report the researchers.

"Our results suggest that the [academic] enthusiasm for the marriage bar is warranted," conclude the researchers. "Couple-level economic progress may play a role in marriage formation."

Source: Demography, "His" and "Hers": Meeting the Economic Bar to Marriage, Volume 55, No. 6 ($39.95)