The Economics of Marriage and Cohabitation - 12/08/07

Sat Dec 8 21:20:15 EST 2007

- TEACHING MARRIAGE TO ECONOMICS UNDERGRADS
- FOR RICHER: THE LINKS BETWEEN MARRIAGE AND AFFLUENCE

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- TEACHING MARRIAGE TO ECONOMICS UNDERGRADS

Looks like we should invite Professor Souza to present on the "Teaching
Marriage to Undergrads" panel at Smart Marriages.  If anyone knows him, tell
him we admire his work.  -d

Lowering the cost increases demand

Father Raymond J. De Souza
National Post (Ontario, Canada)
December 08, 2007

In the fourth-year economics seminar I teach at Queen's University, we cover
a range of topics, from globalized trade to the nature of rationality. But
one topic seems to attract more interest from the students than others --
economics and marriage. Perhaps it is because the senior students are at an
age when they are beginning to think about marriage and family questions
themselves, or perhaps because it is a topic in which the real-world
applications are easy to see.

For example, applying economic principles to divorce law, one would expect
that the lower the exit costs from marriage (no-fault divorce, for example),
the lower the "entrance requirement" would be (commitment to the marriage).
Therefore, if the law makes it easier to get out, it also makes it
correspondingly less important to consider the decision to get in. No great
surprise there, as it is a basic economic axiom that if you lower the price
of something (divorce) there will be an increase in the demand for it.

It is another set of figures, though, that spark the more intense
discussion. For about 10 years now there have been many studies, both in
Canada and the United States, which show a link between cohabitation before
marriage with greater marital instability. That is, couples who live
together before they marry are more likely to divorce than couples who do
not. This year our seminar had the benefit of the latest Statistics Canada
from the 2006 census, which reported again the same phenomenon.

Some students find this counter-intuitive. Their intuition is that if a
couple were to live together first, they would learn more about each other,
see each other with both strengths and weaknesses, and therefore be able to
make a better decision about marriage. It is like a trial period for a new
product, or a probationary period in a new job -- a chance for the parties
to see if it is a good match, with a less costly way to break off the
agreement if it is not.

So why do the data show the opposite? Perhaps there might be a "selection"
issue, namely that cohabiting couples are less committed to

marriage initially than non-cohabiting couples. In that case, when
cohabiting couples eventually get around to marrying, their lower level of
commitment leads to a higher rate of divorce.

There could be another explanation though, which is that the decision to
marry is not really like getting a new product or starting a new job, where
functionality and compatibility are key factors. If marriage is something
different, then the preparation too should be something different.

What helps marriages to endure is not the compatibility of the spouses or
the delight they take in each other. After all, over time people do change,
circumstances are different and the pressures of life are brought to bear.
Not all age equally gracefully. What enables marriages to endure, and
thrive, is the commitment of the spouses to the marriage itself. Most
married couples will tell you, quite unsurprisingly, that they could never
have imagined beforehand the circumstances that they have faced over the
years of the marriage. Keeping one's promises and a willingness to sacrifice
for the other are the foundations of marital and family stability.

The question then arises: Is cohabitation good preparation for keeping one's
promises and learning to sacrifice? Perhaps not. What distinguishes
cohabitation from marriage is precisely the absence of the formal promise or
solemn commitment. And it is more difficult to make significant sacrifices
for the other if there is less confidence in the permanence of the
arrangement.

Cohabitation is bad preparation for lasting marriages because it confuses
what marriage is about. It mistakes the fruits of marriage--delight in each
other, a shared project in life, the joy of children -- with what
constitutes the essence of marriage itself. The fruits, to mix the metaphor,
are the result of the foundation -- which is built by duty, commitment,
sacrifice, loyalty, perseverance and fidelity. What is needed is not so much
a trial period of preparation, but training in those virtues. It turns out,
both intuitively and according to the data, that cohabitation is not good
preparation for that.

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- FOR RICHER: THE LINKS BETWEEN MARRIAGE AND AFFLUENCE

Here's the December Top Ten from FamilyFacts.org - the wonderful service
that rounds up and complies healthy marriage/healthy family data. Bookmark
this site: http://familyfacts.org/

For Richer: The Link between Marriage and Affluence
December 6, 2007

Married individuals in all age groups were more likely to become affluent
than peers who were not married, and the marriage advantage increased with
age, according to a 2001 study.

Among individuals aged 25 to 45, 33 percent of married individuals will
experience at least one year of affluence compared to 16 percent of their
peers who were not married.  Among individuals aged 45 to 65, 42 percent of
married individuals will become affluent compared to 18 percent of their
peers who were not married
Read this finding and thousands of others at http://familyfacts.org/.

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