THE ACCUMULATION OF HUMAN CAPITAL DURING MARRIAGE BY MALES

Abstract

Married males have significantly higher wage rates than never‐married, widowed, or divorced males, even when differences in educational attainment, experience, race, and so on are controlled for. Evidence presented in this paper suggests that most of the unexplained wage differential associated with marital status in earnings regressions results from males accumulating human capital more rapidly when they are married than when those same males are not married. The hypothesis that married males earn more than unmarried males because marriage facilitates the financing of human capital accumulation is supported by this and other evidence.