Sociology Ph.D. Dissertations

The Roles of Direct and Indirect Marriage in the Marriage Bar, Marriage Wage Premium, and Within Couple Earnings Equality

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Wendy Manning (Committee Chair)

Second Advisor

Karen Guzzo (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Kei Nomaguchi (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

I-Fen Lin (Committee Member)

Fifth Advisor

Lubomir Popov (Other)

Abstract

In recent decades, there have been large changes in family formation in the U.S. The marriage rate has decreased concomitantly with increasing premarital cohabitation and premarital fertility. A majority of young adults today are indirect marriers, meaning that they cohabit with their spouse prior to marriage, as opposed to marrying without first cohabiting or direct marriage. At the same time there have been significant shifts in the labor market. The majority of women today are in the labor force, the most common household type is now a dual-earner household, and the gender pay gap is still significant but shrinking. Extant research on the role of economic factors in the transition to marriage as well as the economic outcomes of marriage and fertility has often been limited to older generations or have not explicitly considered the roles of direct or indirect marriage. In turn prior research often disregards the paths to marriage and focuses on a marital framework. This dissertation uses the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate how the path to marriage influences marriage bar, the marriage wage premium, and the effect of parenthood on the within-couple earnings equality among men and women born between 1980 and 1984. The results showed that the marriage bar existed for both direct and indirect marriage with few differences based on economic characteristics. Furthermore, only indirect marriers receive a marriage wage premium in the short tun, however not one that was statistically different between direct and indirect marriers. Finally, the share of women’s earnings decreased upon parenthood and there were no differences between direct and indirect marriers. This dissertation contributes to previous research by focusing on a younger generation and their more complex paths into marriage in an economic climate where men and women’s economic resources are becoming more equally important in family formation. Yet the focus on direct and indirect marriers does not cover the family formation terrain of today and to move the field forward it is increasingly important to go beyond the concept of marriage to incorporate the growing complexity in the paths to cohabitation, marital, and family formations.

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