TY - JOUR
T1 - The Accumulation of (Dis)advantage
T2 - The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Long-Term Wage Effect of Marriage
AU - Cheng, Siwei
N1 - Funding Information:
The author acknowledges support from an NICHD training grant to the Population Studies Center (T32 HD007339), the Rackham Graduate School, and the Marshall Weinberg Research Fellowship, all at the University of Michigan.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, American Sociological Association 2015.
PY - 2016/2/1
Y1 - 2016/2/1
N2 - A sizable literature examines whether and why marriage affects men’s and women’s wages. This study advances current research in two ways. First, whereas most prior studies treat the effect of marriage as time-invariant, I examine how the wage effect of marriage unfolds over the life course. Second, whereas prior work often focuses on the population-average effect of marriage or is limited to some particular gender or racial group, I examine the intersection of gender and race in the effect of marriage. Analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, I find that the marriage wage premium grows steadily and at a similar pace among white and black men. The marriage wage premium declines toward negative among white women, yet it grows steadily among black women. Furthermore, measured work experience explains a substantial amount of the wage premium among black men, yet it has little explanatory power among white men, pointing to the importance of unobserved factors in white men’s marriage premium. Changes in work experience negatively affect married white women’s wages, yet they positively affect married black women’s wages, pointing to the important differences between black and white families.
AB - A sizable literature examines whether and why marriage affects men’s and women’s wages. This study advances current research in two ways. First, whereas most prior studies treat the effect of marriage as time-invariant, I examine how the wage effect of marriage unfolds over the life course. Second, whereas prior work often focuses on the population-average effect of marriage or is limited to some particular gender or racial group, I examine the intersection of gender and race in the effect of marriage. Analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, I find that the marriage wage premium grows steadily and at a similar pace among white and black men. The marriage wage premium declines toward negative among white women, yet it grows steadily among black women. Furthermore, measured work experience explains a substantial amount of the wage premium among black men, yet it has little explanatory power among white men, pointing to the importance of unobserved factors in white men’s marriage premium. Changes in work experience negatively affect married white women’s wages, yet they positively affect married black women’s wages, pointing to the important differences between black and white families.
KW - gender
KW - life course
KW - marriage premium
KW - race
KW - wage trajectory
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U2 - 10.1177/0003122415621263
DO - 10.1177/0003122415621263
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84961363703
SN - 0003-1224
VL - 81
SP - 29
EP - 56
JO - American sociological review
JF - American sociological review
IS - 1
ER -