marriage_moneyFrom an economics perspective both getting a college degree and getting married are beneficial for one’s earning potential. So why do economists promote the college wage premium while downplaying or ignoring the marriage wage premium? As Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry says,



Gobry posits that the reason is bias: economists have an education bias because to become an economist requires numerous years of higher education and they have a liberal-cosmopolitan bias against government encouraging people to make intimate choices.

I think this is generally correct. Almost every marriage promoting economist I’ve ever seen has been politically conservative and/or Christian. In other words, they have pro-marriage biases that are as strong, if not stronger, than their education bias. I also believe this is why the heated debates in our country over social issues have a parallel in the economic realm. The “Culture War” is a heated clash while the economic-social is still a Cold War struggle. But they both are rooted in modern society’s two primary principles which are, as James Matthew Wilson says, autonomy of appetite and free consent. Because marriage and family limit our autonomy of appetite (and our free consent in engaging in the modern sexual buffet), it is considered by many elites to be gauche, if not downright immoral, to imply that people should voluntarily restrict their intimate choices by signing up for a (potentially) life-long commitment.

This also explains why, as Gobry notes, economists tend to “almost exclusively focus on productivity growth and completely ignore population growth” despite the fact that population growth leads to economic growth.

Economists have countless ideas on how government might do things to improve productivity growth, but the idea of using government to improve population growth is, quite simply, taboo. If economists are biased by a perspective which finds the idea of natalist policy squeamish, this makes perfect sense. If economists are dispassionate analysts, it doesn’t.

Of course, economists with a liberal-cosmopolitan perspective could certainly not openly endorse, much less propose, pro-natalist policies. That is why their preferred method is population growth is increased immigration: they want to take advantage of other countries pro-natalist attitudes.

We’re unlikely to change the minds of economists who have biases against getting married and having babies. But we need to be aware that such biases exist. By understanding that certain policies aren’t preferred solely because they are the optimal option, we can counter with our own preferred—and admittedly biased—approaches to economic and social policy. We may not be able to take bias out of economics, but we can at least insure the right biases are put in.

  • John Farrier

    Megan McArdle has a simpler explanation. Urging college but not marriage makes more sense for economists personally:


  • emt22

    interesting topic. These two issues do not seem to be the same, particularly from a causal perspective.

    I don’t think any self-respecting economist (or social scientist) would deny that an increase in education leads to an increase in earnings. Of course we could argue about the size of that premium, whether it is decreasing, and variance among different groups.

    With marriage, however, there are numerous confounders that do not make the relationship as clear cut. One of those confounders is socio-economic status: that is, individuals who come from a more stable socio-economic background tend to marry at higher levels than those from a lower socio-economic background. At the same time, there is issue of marriage longevity: once again, class seems to play an influence, although there it varies across classes.

    Thus, if you were to take the marginal individual and advise them to go to school or to get married, education would seem like a safe bet; marriage would not, At least, until further work can be done to entangle whether the marriage premium is really capturing the benefits of marriage, or is simply capturing the benefits of two individuals coming together from higher socio-economic backgrounds.

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