Marriage Premium for Chinese Men:"Helping" or "Selection"?
This article is based on the nonparametric identification method,combined with the China Household Income Project(CHIP)data from 2007 to 2018,to empirically test the causes of the male marriage premium.This method effectively avoids the issue faced by traditional econometric models,which cannot simultaneously identify the"helping"and the"selection".Our findings indicate that,after controlling for the impact of individual characteristics on male wage income,married men have significantly higher hourly wage incomes compared to unmarried men,with a premium of 23.1％.Specifically,the formation of the male marriage premium is mainly due to the"helping effect",while the"selection effect"does not have a significant impact on the male marriage premium.Furthermore,the decomposition analysis of the contributions of the two effects supports the conclusion,suggesting that,both statistically and economically,most of the male marriage premium stems from the"helping".Moreover,heterogeneity analysis results show that the"helping"is greater in urban households than in rural households.In urban marriages,there is also a significant"selection"where wives tend to choose husbands with higher productivity to form a family.Additionally,individual characteristics of wives also influence the"helping effect".Generally,higher levels of education and income for wives correspond to stronger"husband"abilities,resulting in a larger male marriage premium.
Male Marriage PremiumUnconditional DistributionHelping EffectSelection Effect
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
