Crossing the threshold: Assessing the financial barrier to male marriageability

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Thomas, Adam^a

Affiliations: [a] Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Georgetown University, 412 Old North, 37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20057, USA. Tel.: +1 202 687 3231; Fax: +1 202 687 5542; E-mail: att24@georgetown.edu

Abstract: This study is motivated by an intriguing puzzle found in the literature on family formation: quantitative analyses tend to show that marriage is usually financially beneficial for low-income single mothers and their children, but, in the relevant qualitative literature, such women often identify men's limited financial resources as a key reason for their remaining unmarried. I seek to reconcile these findings by examining the functional form of the relationship between men's earnings and their marital prospects. I find that this relationship is best described by models in which earnings are expressed as a percentile ranking relative to the earnings of one's peers. This finding persists across numerous alternative specifications and is robust to the use of an alternative method for calculating earnings. I conclude that many low-skilled men may, as a condition of becoming marriageable, be required to demonstrate that they are at least as capable as their peers of improving their partners' financial well-being.

Keywords: Family formation, marriageability, functional form

DOI: 10.3233/JEM-2012-0353

Journal: Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, vol. 37, no. 1-2, pp. 119-144, 2012