by Staff writer
America’s biggest earners are married men.
According to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, men who are married are earning much more money, on average, than everyone else in America.
On comparison of the income of workers with at least a high school diploma by age, gender and marital status, it was found that the wages of married men are higher than those of single men, married women and single women, and that’s true at every age from 20 to 64!
The difference is most pronounced at around age 45, when married men’s earnings peak.
The data doesn’t necessarily mean that being married increases a man’s wages, according to the analysis by Guillaume Vandenbroucke, a research officer at the Fed. It may mean men earning higher wages are more likely to marry and lower-income men remain single, the Fed found.
Also, married and single women make similar wages, which is “not consistent with the view that the gender wage gap results from women having children earlier in life and losing ground in human capital accumulation relative to men.”
“The gender wage gap remains a complicated topic,” Vandenbroucke wrote in the summary. “But progress may come from asking different questions: not just why women earn less than men (although not compared with single men), but also why married men earn so much more than everyone else.”
Also of note is that married and single women earn very similar wages. That’s surprising, says Vandenbroucke, since married women are more likely to have children than single women, and that’s “not consistent with the view that the gender wage gap results from women having children earlier in life and losing ground in human capital accumulation relative to men.”
In short, the gender wage gap is a complex topic, says Vandenbroucke: “Progress may come from asking different questions: not just why women earn less than men (although not compared with single men), but also why married men earn so much more than everyone else.”
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