Marriage and Work among Prime-Age Men

Abstract

Married men work 20% more hours than men who have never been married, even after controlling for observables. Panel data regressions show that a significant part of this gap is accounted for by an increase in work in the run-up to marriage. Two potential explanations for this increase are: (i) men with positive wage realizations are more likely to marry; and (ii) marriage raises the expected marginal value of consumption. We quantify the relative importance of these channels using a structural life-cycle model of marriage and labor supply. Preliminary results suggest that a sizeable causal effect of marriage on male work is necessary for the model to be consistent with the data.