The Marriage Wealth Premium Revisited: Gender Disparities and Within-Individual Changes in Personal Wealth in Germany

This study examines the association between marriage and economic wealth of women and men. Going beyond previous research that focused on household wealth, I examine personal wealth, which allows identifying gender disparities in the association between marriage and wealth. Using unique data from th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDemography Vol. 54; no. 3; pp. 961 - 983
Main Author Lersch, Philipp M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Population Association of America (Springer) 01.06.2017
Springer US
Duke University Press, NC & IL
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Chief executive officers
Correlation analysis
Demography
Economics
Female
Gender
Gender inequality
Geography
Humans
Income - statistics & numerical data
Male
MARRIAGE
Marriage - statistics & numerical data
Medicine/Public Health
Men
Middle Aged
Older people
Population Economics
Premiums
Random effects
Regression analysis
Sex Factors
Social Sciences
Socioeconomic Factors
Sociology
Wealth
Women
Young Adult
Germany
Marriage premium
Gender
Life course
Wealth
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Summary:This study examines the association between marriage and economic wealth of women and men. Going beyond previous research that focused on household wealth, I examine personal wealth, which allows identifying gender disparities in the association between marriage and wealth. Using unique data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, and 2012), I apply random-effects and fixed-effects regression models to test my expectations. I find that both women and men experience substantial marriage wealth premiums not only in household wealth but also in personal wealth. However, I do not find consistent evidence for gender disparities in these general marriage premiums. Additional analyses indicate, however, that women's marriage premiums are substantially lower than men's premiums in older cohorts and when only nonhousing wealth is considered. Overall, this study provides new evidence that women and men gain unequally in their wealth attainment through marriage.
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ISSN:0070-3370
1533-7790
DOI:10.1007/s13524-017-0572-4