The Accumulation of (Dis)Advantage: Dynamics of the Wage Effect of Marriage over the Life Course for Men and Women

Siwei Cheng, University of Michigan

This paper extends current understandings of the wage effect of marriage by examining its long-term dynamics over the life course for men and women respectively. Applying fixed-effect models to 103,392 person-year observations of the NLSY79 data, I found that (1) marriage is associated with higher rate of wage growth for men, yet lower rate of wage growth for women; (2) the positive association between marriage and wage growth for men is mainly attributable to work experience while the negative association between marriage and wage growth for women is mainly attributable to childbearing; (3) the gender difference in the pattern of variations in the wage effect of marriage over the life course causes the gender wage gap to grow over the life time. And the two mechanisms account for 1/3 and 1/5, respectively, of the total growth in the gender wage gap due to marriage over a 20-year life span.