Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Why Do Economists Urge College But Not Marriage?
Why Do Economists Urge College But Not Marriage?
Sep 4, 2025 12:47 AM

From an economics perspective both getting a college degree and getting married are beneficial for one’s earning potential. So why do economists promote the college wage premium while downplaying or ignoring the marriage wage premium? As Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry says,

In contemporary societies, there is a strong college wage premium. That is to say, people who go to college make more money on average than people who don’t. While a minority of economists (including Cowen) have questioned why this premium should exist, the majority of economists generally take the existence of this college wage premium to mean that college is good and important, that more people should go to college, and that public policy has some role to play in promoting and subsidizing college attendance. I would bet a goodly sum of money that if you picked at random ten tenured economists from top-20 economics departments, and asked them to list what an 18-year-old should do to increase his chances of getting high wages, a majority would say “go to college.”

There also exists a marriage wage premium, which is roughly as significant and as consistent as the college wage premium. To say that the marriage wage premium doesn’t get the same amount of attention is an understatement. Economists recoil at the idea of praising marriage and supporting public policies that increase marriage. They are much more likely to dismiss the marriage wage premium as reflecting selection bias (it’s not that marriage makes people earn more money, it’s that people who would have earned more money anyway tend to get married) or intone that “correlation is not causation”–criticisms that apply equally to analyses of the college wage premium. I would bet a goodly sum of money that if you picked at random ten tenured economists from top-20 economics departments, and asked them to list what an 18-year-old should do to increase his chances of getting high wages, none of them would say “get married and stay married”–even though the data on the marriage wage premium supports this conclusion to the same extent as it does going to college.

Gobry posits that the reason is bias: economists have an education bias because to e an economist requires numerous years of higher education and they have a liberal-cosmopolitan bias against government encouraging people to make intimate choices.

I think this is generally correct. Almost every marriage promoting economist I’ve ever seen has been politically conservative and/or Christian. In other words, they have pro-marriage biases that are as strong, if not stronger, than their education bias. I also believe this is why the heated debates in our country over social issues have a parallel in the economic realm. The “Culture War” is a heated clash while the economic-social is still a Cold War struggle. But they both are rooted in modern society’s two primary principles which are, as James Matthew Wilson says, autonomy of appetite and free consent. Because marriage and family limit our autonomy of appetite (and our free consent in engaging in the modern sexual buffet), it is considered by many elites to be gauche, if not downright immoral, to imply that people should voluntarily restrict their intimate choices by signing up for a (potentially) mitment.

This also explains why, as Gobry notes, economists tend to “almost exclusively focus on productivity growth pletely ignore population growth” despite the fact that population growth leads to economic growth.

Economists have countless ideas on how government might do things to improve productivity growth, but the idea of using government to improve population growth is, quite simply, taboo. If economists are biased by a perspective which finds the idea of natalist policy squeamish, this makes perfect sense. If economists are dispassionate analysts, it doesn’t.

Of course, economists with a liberal-cosmopolitan perspective could certainly not openly endorse, much less propose, pro-natalist policies. That is why their preferred method is population growth is increased immigration: they want to take advantage of other countries pro-natalist attitudes.

We’re unlikely to change the minds of economists who have biases against getting married and having babies. But we need to be aware that such biases exist. By understanding that certain policies aren’t preferred solely because they are the optimal option, we can counter with our own preferred—and admittedly biased—approaches to economic and social policy. We may not be able to take bias out of economics, but we can at least insure the right biases are put in.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Macron’s Orwellian fake news fix
“On January 3, during his first press event of the new year, French President Emmanuel Macron presented a proposal intended to ‘protect the democratic life’ of France from ‘fake news,’” writes Marcin Rzegocki in this week’s Acton Commentary. Macron would make it “possible for judges to remove fake news stories, delete the links to them, block the sites, or close the offending users’ accounts.” The French president is not alone with his ideas to limit foreign information in his country....
Czech commies want to tax church property stolen by Czech commies
Imagine your property is stolen and then having to have this conversation. Government authorities: “Good news, we recovered your stolen property!” You: “That’s great! When can I get it back?” Gov: “Eh, the bad news is we can only give you back 56 percent of what was stolen.” You: “Well, I guess that’s better than nothing.” Gov: “The good news is that you’ll receive cash as restitution for the rest.” You: “Oh wow. That’s incredible!” Gov: “The bad news is...
The 3 reasons Martin Luther King Jr. rejected Communism
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, but the civil rights leader is a figure of worldwide significance. He learned the principles of non-violence from those resisting the British empire, received the Nobel Peace Prize in Stockholm, and is one of the “twentieth century martyrs” whose statue sits atop the great west door of Westminster Cathedral (alongside Maximilian Kolbe, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others). And 50 years after his death, his moral crusade for equal treatment under...
Radio Free Acton: Jennifer Roback Morse on family breakdown and the economy; Upstream on Darkest Hour
On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Trey Dimsdale, Director of Program Outreach at Acton, speaks with Jennifer Roback Morse, founder of the Ruth Institute, about her ing Acton Lecture Series talk on family breakdown and the economy. Then, on the Upstream segment, Bruce Edward Walker talks to Acton’s Patrick Oetting on the new film Darkest Hour. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Register here to attend Acton’s Lecture Series event on January 25, featuring Jennifer...
Asymmetric information and used cars
Note: This is post #64 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Adverse selection occurs when an offer conveys negative information about what is being offered. For example, in the market for used cars, sellers have more information about the car’s quality than buyers. This leads to the death spiral of the market, and market failure, explains Marginal Revolution University. However, the market has developed solutions such as warrantees, guarantees, branding, and inspections to offset information asymmetry. (If you...
Explainer: What you should know about a government shutdown
Why is there talk about a government shutdown? In December Congress passed the Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018 (H.R. 1370) which provides non-discretionary funding through January 19, 2018. Because that Act expires at midnight on Friday, Congress must pass a new continuing appropriations act to keep the government operating. Democrats in Congress are insisting that any new stop-gap spending measure to keep the government funded must include a legislative fix on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) act....
Video: Alex Chafuen discusses the causes and consequences of inflation in Latin America (Spanish)
2017 was a difficult year for many in Latin America. While Mexico endured 6.77 percent inflation, Argentina reached 24.5 percent and Venezuelans suffered a whopping 2,616 percent inflation. parison, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the United States saw inflation between 2.0 and 1.7 percent in 2017. Alex Chafuen, managing director of international outreach at Acton, recently addressed the issues in Latin America on NTN24 “Nuestra Tele Noticias.” Chafuen denounces how inflation feeds corruption, especially in Venezuela and Argentina....
Tweeting the abyss: Explaining Nietzsche in 140 characters (or less)
While trying to teach the most consequential thoughts of West civilization to undergraduates, C. Ivan Spencer hit upon a unique idea: What if they were written in tweets instead of tomes? That’s the kernel of his book Tweetable Nietzsche: His Essential Ideas Revealed and Explained. Somehow, the idea that the callously exploitative philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche could be mass-marketed so easily makes it all the more unsettling. Spencer’s book is reviewed this weekend by Josh Herring, a humanities instructor atThales...
The 2 things that can help Africans prosper
For too long, the West’s policy toward Africa could be summed up in two words: foreign aid. Somehow, temporary funds transfers – many of which never reach their recipient country and end up in the pockets of well-connected Western professionals – would solve structural development issues. MIT economist Daron Acemoglu once derided some foreign aid plans as “get-rich-quick schemes.” Those developmental policies, like Ponzi schemes, hurt the would-be beneficiary. “Even as the level of foreign aid into Africa soared through...
Economic problems are not driving opioid overdose deaths
The opioid epidemic has e one of the deadliest drug crises in American history. In 2015, more peopledied from drug overdosesthan in any year on record, and the majority of drug overdose deaths—more than six out of ten—involved an opioid. A study of emergency rooms in the U.S. also found that since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioid pain relievers and heroin) nearly quadrupled. Altogether nearly half a million people died from drug overdoses in...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved