Lerman, Robert I. --- "Economic Perspectives on Marriage: Causes, Consequences, and Public Policy" [2011] ELECD 595; in Cohen, R. Lloyd; Wright, D. Joshua (eds), "Research Handbook on the Economics of Family Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Economics of Family Law

Editor(s): Cohen, R. Lloyd; Wright, D. Joshua

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848444379

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Economic Perspectives on Marriage: Causes, Consequences, and Public Policy

Author(s): Lerman, Robert I.

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

3 Economic perspectives on marriage: causes,
consequences, and public policy
Robert I. Lerman*


Marriage is central to the economic and social life of the United States, despite the delays
in marriage, high rates of divorce, and high proportions of children born to unmarried
parents. By their early 30s, 70 percent of Americans have married and nearly 60 percent
are currently married.1 Only 16 percent of 40­45-year-olds have never married. While
marriage is a nearly universal experience, media coverage of marriage often focuses
on issues affecting a small subset of the population, especially the legality of same-sex
marriages.2
Although the home for the academic study of marriage has long been in sociology
departments and among demographers, economists have increasingly produced theoreti-
cal and empirical analyses of marriage. The number of economics journal articles with the
"marriage, marital dissolution, and family structure" descriptor jumped from 81 in the
1990­94 period to 393 in the 2005­09 period.3 Economists have used standard economics
tools to study marriage, including trade, contracting, game theory, externalities, human
capital theory, financial risks, economic incentives built into the tax and transfer systems,
search theory, and supply, demand and equilibrium in marriage markets.
The theoretical contributions that helped stimulate the economics profession to
conduct rigorous research on marriage were Gary Becker's 1973 and 1974 articles on "A
Theory of Marriage" and his 1981 book, A Treatise on the Family. Becker emphasized the
gains from marriage that result from trade in ...