Payoff or Penalty? A Comparison of the Marriage Wage Differential for Men and Women across 15 Nations.

This paper contributes to a broader understanding of the role of marriage in gender stratification in a comparative perspective by providing important descriptive evidence of the distribution of the marriage wage gap for men and women cross-nationally.This paper focuses on marital status and men's and women's wages in fifteen countries using Wave V of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Examining whether there are systematic wage differences between married and unmarried individuals, I find clear evidence of a wage advantage for married men but mixed results for women. Results suggest that both selection into marriage and, to a much more limited extent, household structure are relevant in accounting for some of the wage advantage for married men as well marriage wage differentials found for women. For women, differences in human capital and household structure explain differences in the wages between married and unmarried women in nine of the fifteen countries, but only one country for men. For men, the variation in the marriage bonus net of human capital and household context is limited; for women it varies widely. Explorations seeking to link the variation in the marriage wage gap with macro level indicator such as fertility or female labor force participation do not suggest a clear link to these aspects of the institutional context. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]