Based on data reported by the American Economic Association (AEA), married men earn up to 33 percent more in wages compared to single men, but the question is why? What makes establishing a marital union more profitable and if this is the case, why are Black men less likely to get married in comparison to other ethnic groups?
The Male Marital Wage Premium is a well-studied concept that has been proven by several researchers over the past few decades — even when controlling for age, occupation, work experience, and education levels — that married men earn more than unmarried and divorced men.
WHY MARRIAGE EQUALS MORE MONEY
Specialization theory is atop of the reasons why married men make more money in their jobs. This theory is rooted in the belief that wives contribute to unpaid laboring tasks such as tending to domestic duties, which in turn, provides husbands with more time and energy to move up the corporate ladder.
Men who have wives who don’t work make more money than married men with working spouses and this correlates with the need for single-provider married men to negotiate larger salaries. Married men make 12 percent more per year and this gap continues to grow the longer they stay married. Specialization theory further delves into explaining why men who divorce experience a decline in wages, due to their need for more time away from work to accommodate for additional household tasks that were once shared with a spouse.
Productive theory, which is another well-studied notion, concludes that marriage increases men’s overall work output because of their need to be accountable for persons other than themselves.
An excerpt from a published research article written by Dr. Tera R. Hurt, “Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Meaning of Marriage Among Black Men,” quotes a 33-year-old husband married for nine years saying, “It just makes everything better to me as far as trying to build things together, provide for one another together.”
Further research conducted by Korenman and Neumark, which found that married men are 46 percent more likely to receive higher performance ratings and 36 percent more likely to be promoted when compared to single men, also supports the belief that married men are more productive performers at work.
Selection theory hinges on the English proverb, “birds of a feather flock together” by suggesting high-earning husbands tend to marry high-earning wives. Based on a study conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) Insurance Agency, which surveyed 5,000 physicians, found that 40 percent of those doctors will marry another doctor. Selection theory is also backed by the Pew Research Center, which identified that in 2019, 81 percent of spouses who earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, had a partner or spouse who also graduated college.
When both a husband and wife are educated and are able to draw valuable incomes, they can practice joint household decision-making when searching for career advancement opportunities. If both spouses are pulling incomes, they can lean on each other while patiently waiting for greater opportunities to advance professionally and economically. In turn, married partners get a tactical advantage because they can comfortably turn down lower offers since they are not operating from a place of scarcity. This is in contrast to their single professional counterparts who often yield to the first offer presented out of fear or the urgency for immediate income.
WHY BLACK MEN DON’T MARRY
Based on the most recent US Census data between 2015-2019, only 31 percent of Black adults were married. Out of every US state, the District of Columbia reported the lowest percentage of married Black adults during this time with a rate of 18.8 percent and Hawaii accounted for the state with the highest rate of 49 percent. Asian Americans reported the highest percentages of marriages at 65 percent followed by whites at 61 percent, which means Caucasians are twice as likely to marry in comparison to Blacks.
When Power actor Rotimi was asked during an interview by Fox Soul why he thought Black men don’t want to get married, he said, “We don’t see in our society enough successful marriages so we attribute it to being a headache, we attribute it to divorce that will eventually happen, we attribute it to being something that really doesn’t last long so why bother.”
With cohabitation rates on the rise, Black men in particular aren’t marrying because why should they buy the cow when they are getting the milk for free? High cohabitation rates are linked to higher divorce rates, which further drives the narrative expressed by Rotimi that marriage is a headache destined not to last. Couples who “play house” by cohabitating before marriage undermine commitment because when things get tough, it’s easier for them to justify leaving.
Since most cohabitating couples are sexually active, their lack of premarital boundaries promotes higher rates of infidelity, which bleeds over into marriage. When unmarried cohabitating males were surveyed by a couples’ counselor who asked them why they cheated on their girlfriends, their most common response was, “She isn’t my wife and we’re not married yet. Once we get married, I’ll be faithful.”
The problem with this faulty thinking is that when one partner cheats on the other, they create a traumatic experience that’s then brought into the marriage. It should be no surprise that couples who step into marriage on a weakened foundation undermined by a lack of trust will have a greater likelihood of divorce.
Alongside the lack of positive examples of what a healthy and happy marriage looks like, one can see why marriage is viewed as a headache for so many Black men. It’s a common practice for a Bowenian-trained family therapist, during their initial sessions of conducting couples counseling, to author both clients’ genograms, which are illustrations of the couple’s family maps across a minimum of three generations. Often, the couple’s attitudes around marriage are linked to their family of origin, which are strong indicators of divorce.
Relationship partners, raised by guardians who never married or divorced, describe marriage as a union destined to fail. This is not a moot point because, according to the book Understanding the Divorce Cycle, authored by Nicholas Wolfinger, the risk of divorce is 50 percent higher when one spouse comes from a divorced home and 200 percent higher when both partners do.
Needless to say, marriage counselors face an uphill battle as they work to not only help heal and repair Black love in our country but also move the needle toward more Black men seeing marriage as a favorable choice. The focus at the beginning of this article was based on the premise that marriage is a catalyst to higher overall life wages. The fact is, though, that marriage is filled with so many amazing benefits that are linked to men living longer, healthy, and more fulfilled lives.
