Working Paper: NBER ID: w22078
Authors: Shelly Lundberg; Robert A. Pollak; Jenna E. Stearns
Abstract: The last 60 years have seen the emergence of a dramatic socioeconomic gradient in marriage, divorce, cohabitation, and childbearing. The divide is between college graduates and others: those without four-year degrees have family patterns and trajectories very similar to those of high school graduates. We document these trends and show that, compared with college graduates, less-educated women are more likely to enter into cohabiting partnerships early and bear children while cohabiting, are less likely to transition quickly into marriage, and have much higher divorce rates. \n \nThere are two broad sets of explanations for these differences. Conventional explanations focus on the diminished economic prospects of less-educated men. We propose an alternative explanation focusing on educational differences in demand for marital commitment. As the gains from traditional gender-based specialization have declined, the value of marriage has decreased relative to cohabitation, which offers many of the gains of co-residence with less commitment. We argue that college graduate parents use marriage as a commitment device to facilitate intensive joint investments in their children. For less educated couples for whom such investments are less desirable or less feasible, commitment and, hence, marriage has less value relative to cohabitation. The resulting socioeconomic divergence has implications for children and for future inequality.
Keywords: Family Inequality; Marriage; Cohabitation; Childbearing; Socioeconomic Gradient
JEL Codes: D1; H31; I3; J1; N3
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| diminished economic prospects of less-educated men (F66) | marriage rates (J12) |
| educational differences in demand for marital commitment (J12) | diverging family structures (J12) |
| less-educated women (J79) | cohabiting partnerships (J12) |
| less-educated women (J79) | bear children while cohabiting (J12) |
| less-educated women (J79) | higher divorce rates (J12) |
| college-educated parents (I24) | marriage as a commitment device (J12) |
| marriage as a commitment device (J12) | intensive joint investments in children (J13) |
| less-educated couples (J12) | find investments less desirable (G11) |
| economic and social changes (P39) | transformed family structures (J12) |
| transformed family structures (J12) | implications for children's stability and well-being (I24) |