Is it true that states with a higher proportion of traditional families have better economic outcomes? Bradford Wilcox, Joseph Price, and Robert Lerman answer this topic in a recent study. The writers investigate the significance of families in affecting a country’s economic development. They discovered that states with a larger share of married parents have better economic performance.
Higher marriage rates are linked to higher state GDP per capita, higher levels of upward economic mobility, lower child poverty, and higher median family earnings. When states in the top quintile of married parent families are compared to states in the bottom quintile, they find that being in the top quintile is associated with a $1,451 higher per capita GDP, 10.5 percent greater upward income mobility for children from low-income families, and a 13.2 percent reduction in child poverty.
These findings are not entirely unexpected. Changes in demographic patterns, such as a rise in the number of single mother families, have been linked to greater rates of poverty, particularly among children, according to other studies. Furthermore, growing up with both parents is linked to a 15% reduction in the likelihood of dropping out of high school. Raj Chetty and colleagues show that family structure has a significant impact on economic mobility, with communities with a higher percentage of single moms being less mobile than those with a lower percentage of single mother households.
What economic benefits does marriage provide?
- Couples filing jointly may be in a reduced tax bracket as a result of the new tax brackets.
- Health insurance can be the most cost-effective option: a couple whose workplaces both provide health insurance can choose the best or cheapest plan for them.
- Long-term care insurance, auto insurance, and house insurance are often discounted for married couples.
What is the cost of marriage?
The economics of marriage examines the creation and dissolution of households, as well as production and distribution decisions within them. It has a lot to do with marriage and home law and economics. Grossbard-Shechtman (1999a and 1999b) distinguishes three approaches to the subject: Marxist (Friedrich Engels (1884) and Himmelweit and Mohun (1977) methods, neoclassical (Gary Becker (1974) approaches, and game theoretic approaches (Marilyn Manser, Murray Brown, Marjorie McElroy and Mary Jane Horney). The state of one’s marriage has a favorable impact on one’s financial situation. For males, there is a marriage prime in which the wage of married men is 15% greater than that of unmarried men. The Uniform Marital Property Act established a provision for the allocation of marital and separate property. The Uniform Premarital Agreements Act includes clauses to assist two spouses in negotiating a premarital agreement on the division of rights and obligations.
How does marriage benefit the government?
Spouses are eligible for Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits. Obtaining veteran’s and military benefits for spouses, such as educational, medical, and special loan advantages. Getting help from the government.
Why does economics matter so much in a marriage?
Individuals profit financially from marriage. It also has societal benefits. Married couples generate more economic assets on average than singles and cohabiting couples as a wealth-generating institution. When researchers looked at the impact of marital history on retirement income, they discovered that people who had been married for a long time had much more money than those who had not: There was a 75% drop in wealth for individuals who never married, and a 73% reduction for those who divorced and didn’t remarry.
Marriage provides couples with a wealth boost due to the economies of scale and expertise it provides. They also have a proclivity to save and invest for the future. And, contrary to popular belief, married men earn more on average than single men with similar education and work experience, owing to their duties and cultural expectations. Working longer and more frequently, according to Nobel Laureate in Economics Gary S Becker, helps a worker boost productivity and earn more money, and this effect spreads throughout the economy. In comparison to cohabiting fathers, twice as many married fathers (32%) worked 45 hours or more per week, according to other US data (16 per cent). Similar tendencies can be seen in other countries.
The advantages are not exclusive to men. Continuously married women have been found to be much better off using an income-to-needs ratio. For women, the economic gains are bigger than for men. For the past six decades in the United States, homes headed by single women have continuously fallen behind those headed by male breadwinner households by 43%. The disparities are exacerbated by the fact that dual-couple homes have the option of earning additional full-time or part-time income.
Marriage has an impact on children in particular. When children are present, married households earn more; when children are present, non-married households earn less. The economist, Robert Lerman, concluded from his study “the 1971- 1989 shift away from marriage among parents accounted for over half the increase in income disparity and more than the entire rise in child poverty rates.
In the economy, the gains for individual couples expand and compound. In the United States, for example, the rise in annual income for married males, estimated at 0.9 percent, is nearly equal to (75 percent) the increase in annual income for years of on-the-job experience. In South Africa, Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, and Canada, the’marriage premium’ – the economic benefits of marriage has been identified. According to another economic study, the’marriage premium’ reduces in stepfamilies.
What impact does the economy have on marriage and family life?
Is there a link between financial resources and the quality of a young couple’s relationship, and how does this differ by relationship type? Using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97, N = 2,841) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, N = 1,702), we generated regression models predicting respondent ratings of conflict and affection in cohabiting and married partner relationships. Economic variables were found to be a significant predictor of conflict in both married and cohabiting couples. Human capital, rather than short-term economic indicators, had the greatest impact on affection. Couples who were married or cohabiting had more conflict when they were experiencing financial stress.
What impact does getting married have on your taxes?
Even if you’re planning a small wedding, getting married comes with its own to-do list. But, when you say “I do,” what happens next? Don’t forget about the tax adjustments after marriage as you adjust to your new life and new roles together. Continue reading to find out what you’ll need to think about.
Name change with Social Security
Because your return is submitted using your Social Security number (SSN), it’s critical to make sure the Social Security Administration (SSA) is informed of any name changes. Before you file your return, the SSA must process the change in the system and communicate that information to the IRS. To avoid any issues that may develop if the name on the return does not match the SSN on file with the SSA, you should wait until the name change process is complete before filing your return.
Changes to your W-4 tax form after marriage
Because your form entries will be different from past years, it may be prudent to update your Form W-4 with your employer to reflect a change in marital status.
Filing status options
The only tax filing statuses that can be used on your tax return once you get married are Married Filing Jointly (MFJ) or Married Filing Separately (MFS) (MFS). The following are the marriage tax benefits for filing taxes together:
- You may be eligible to deduct interest on student loans. (Student loan interest isn’t allowed when you’re MFS, but it’s also limited by income, so if your total income is too high, the student loan interest deduction may be limited or eliminated.)
- Children and daycare expenses are eligible for tax deductions. On an MFS tax return, both the child tax credit and the credit for extra dependents are allowed. On an MFS return, child and dependent care credit is often not allowed.
Your filing status is established on December 31 of each year, so even though you were not married for the majority of the tax year, if you are married on that date, you will not be able to file as single. Because some deductions and credits are decreased or unavailable to married couples filing separate returns, married filing jointly often delivers the best tax result for most couples.
Marriage can change your tax brackets
The highest rate of tax imposed on your income will be determined by these tax brackets. Because tax brackets fluctuate depending on filing status, your earnings may not be taxed at the same rate as when you were single.
When you file a joint return as a married couple, your income is combined, which may push one or both of you into a higher tax rate. Alternatively, if one of you earns more, your spouse may find themselves in a lower tax rate. This could be a tax benefit of being married, depending on your circumstances.
Buying or selling your first home
Your combined wages may allow you to buy your first home after you marry, or you may choose to sell individual homes you owned prior to the marriage. When you own a home, the interest you pay on your mortgage is deductible as an itemized deduction on your tax return.
The amount of gain that can be deducted from income when selling a home doubles from $250,000 to $500,000. However, if only one of you owned the home prior to the marriage, the $500,000 exception only applies if you both lived in it as your primary residence for at least two years.
Marriage tax penalty
When two people filing a joint return pay more tax than the total of their individual tax liabilities computed as if they were single taxpayers, it’s called a marriage penalty. The MFJ income tax brackets and standard deduction are not necessarily equivalent to double the single income tax bracket and standard deduction, which is one explanation for this.
The marriage penalty is partially mitigated under current law because the lower income tax brackets (10 percent, 12 percent, 22 percent, 24 percent, and 32 percent) and standard deduction for married couples are exactly double that of unmarried people.
In a marriage, who benefits the most?
In many romantic relationships, one person wishes to commit to a higher degree of commitmentengagement or marriagewhile the other is willing to keep the relationship as it is. I believe that the woman is wanting more commitment in around two-thirds of these cases, while the man drags his feet. And this is entirely consistent with current societal assumptions.
The fact that males are rumored to be frightened of marriage is more bizarre than it appears. Marriage benefits both men and women, but males appear to profit more in general. Married men earn more money and live longer than bachelors, in addition to being happier and healthier. And, whereas males might gain from average marriages, women’s benefits of marriage are more closely tied to marital quality.
Furthermore, according to multiple surveys dating back over a decade, males are more likely than women to believe that it is better to marry than to live a single life, and men are more likely than women to declare that they would prefer to be married among the unmarried. However, some recent polls suggest that this gap has narrowed or even reversed, albeit in our national sample of unmarried people, males are still slightly more likely than women to believe in the value of marriage.
Men should, logically, be the ones pursuing marriage: they appear to find it appealing, and they are more likely than women to reap significant benefits from it. So, why would a man be hesitant to marry?
Men, I believe, oppose marriage more than women because they believe marriage necessitates a significant increase in behavioral commitment, which they don’t always feel ready for. This hypothesis is supported by three sources: (1) qualitative focus group research presented by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe in 2002; (2) sociologist Steve Nock’s findings and conclusions; and (3) my colleagues’ and my own work on sacrifice and commitment.
Marriage is associated by young males with additional responsibilities and a larger risk of financial loss.
Let’s start with Whitehead and Popenoe’s research, which was published in the National Marriage Project’s 2002 report. The two based their findings on interviews with sixty never-married heterosexual men ranging in age from 25 to 33 who hailed from a variety of religious, ethnic, and family backgrounds. The main reason these guys are opposed to marriage is that they may get many of its benefits without being marriedthat is, through cohabitation. They also reported feeling essentially little social pressure to marry, from their own families, friends’ families, or the families of the woman they live with. They connected marriage to a slew of new responsibilities as well as a higher risk of financial ruin. I doubt that such views are any less widespread now.
Men joked that one advantage of not marrying was that their girlfriend-turned-wife would tell them what to do if they did marry. This could indicate an internal belief that their partners have the authority to tell them what to do after marriage, but not before. This is in line with the way that more commitment alters one’s perception of a relationship. Given the proof of marriage’s health benefits for men, it’s also humorous to me. The direct impact of wives on their husbands’ behavior, according to most researchers, is a primary factor for these benefits: “That’s your third beer of the night; why don’t you just stop?” “You should go to the doctor and have that mole examined.” “You’ve been working late every night and putting in long hours. It’s time to make some changes.” Younger men appear to be perceiving a feature of marriage associated with good health and a longer life as a disadvantage.
Second, according to sociologist Steve Nock’s research, marriage transforms males in profound ways. He addressed how men’s belief systems about themselves and their wives change when they cross the line in his book Marriage in Men’s Lives (1998). His theory is based on the societal function of “husband’s” virility. In general, he observed, when males enter marriage, they begin to perceive themselves as dads, providers, and guardians.
These shifts in identity are linked to changes in behavior. When males get married, they earn more money, work longer hours, spend less time with friends outside of marriage and family, and spend more time with family and in the community in which they live. (While causality can be disputed, research methodologies meant to account for selection effects imply that marriage has a causal impact on at least some of these measures.) According to Nock’s theory, marriage causes significant changes in men’s identities, all of which are in the direction of a greater expectation of caring for others. Data on how women change when they marry is more rare; however, there appears to be less reason to conclude that women have a similar notion that their lives or duties will alter substantially when they marry.
When men enter marriage, they begin to regard themselves as dads, providers, and guardians.
Third, research on marital sacrifice provides another another window into potential gender disparities. My colleagues and I discovered that future commitment is more essential than female commitment in understanding male views about sacrifice in marriage. Findings like this might be interpreted in a variety of ways. Women, for example, may be taught to give to others regardless of the level of a relationship’s commitment.
But I have a theory that goes even further: in order for men to sacrifice for their spouses without resenting it, they must have determined that this is the woman with whom they want to spend the rest of their lives. They must have made the decision that “this woman is my future,” and once they have, the internal metamorphosis takes place. In contrast, I feel that the average woman makes more compromises than the average man, beginning early in love relationships.
To restate the primary argument, being married has historically resulted in a significant shift in how men perceive themselves and act. It would explain the stereotype of women pushing for marriage and men refusing if marriage has been a particularly strong indication of a change in men’s committed conduct. Women have grown to expect a significant transformation in men from tying the knot over thousands of years of history.
There may be certain groups for whom my theory does not apply, or where it does not apply in the same manner it did previously. According to a number of sociologists, persons with lower salaries may have different motivations for marrying or not marrying than those with middle or higher incomes. In interviews, some working-class women have stated that they dislike marriage since it is more difficult to leave than cohabiting partnerships. They also stated that in marriage, men would expect a more traditional division of chores by gender than in cohabitation. In other words, they reported that the males they knew would change after marrying, but that the change would be detrimental to these women, hence they are opposed to marriage.
For those with lower incomes, the reasons for getting married or not getting married may be different.
It’s undeniably true that women’s increasing economic options, as well as changes in men and women’s responsibilities in the family, may have a significant impact on the types of commitment dynamics I’ve outlined. However, there is a powerful counterweight to how far some things can shift, and that has to do with the fact that women get pregnant and men don’t. Given the enormous personal costs of pregnancy and childbirth for women, some scholars suggest that it has been critical for women throughout history to accurately assess (and, if necessary, increase) men’s levels of commitment. Although the fact that women currently have more alternatives and more resources than in previous times may change the equation underpinning my argument, biological constraints are likely to keep some behavioral disparities between men and women.
Regardless of how much male and female behavior may alter in the years ahead, I believe Steve Nock was correct when he prophesied in one of his final works before his untimely death that marriage would become a more powerful signal of commitment as other relationship types become more popular (i.e., cohabitation). Marriage is designed to be transformative, but not all relationship transitions are. This implies that it is significant.
This article was derived from a longer scientific study by Scott Stanley, which can be found here and includes more background and citations.
What are the benefits and drawbacks of getting married financially?
Every marriage should include estate planning, but if your spouse dies without a will, your state’s intestacy rules may still allow you to claim some assets that, for example, were wholly owned by your spouse. “Married couples have certain built-in protections in our society,” Robertson argues. “If you are not married, the rules of intestacy do not apply, and you will not inherit anything unless your partner leaves you a will.”