Marriage: Husbands Get Richer, Bachelors Get Screwed

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Tom Schierlitz / Getty



Aside from the increase in white-collar women, the other trend behind the Pew numbers is that marriage rates have declined most sharply among the least educated men and women, which helps explain why the median household income figures for married men have pulled even further ahead of those for their single counterparts. More of the least affluent are unmarried than before.


The trend has a dark side, says Dalton Conley, social sciences dean at New York University. "High-income women marrying high-income men is one of the drivers of inequality," he says. "It affects the distribution of income between families." He notes that among college-educated high-income couples, the divorce rate is getting lower, while unmarried low-income men and women tend to partner up and then uncouple more rapidly. "This leads to family instability and a cycle of disadvantage," says Conley. Single parents often have trouble moving ahead in their careers, while low-earning parents have little income to save or invest. They fall further behind, while the families with two college-educated earners pull ever more ahead.

Sociologists refer to the phenomenon of people marrying people who are like them as homogamy. Doctors don't marry nurses anymore. They marry other doctors. And the nurses? Well, let's just say they don't seem too keen these days on the orderlies.