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Higher Earnings No Longer Lead to Marriage: Culture is Changing
In this episode, Simone and Malcolm delve into several studies examining how male earnings impact marriage and fertility rates. They discuss findings from economic shocks like the U.S. fracking boom, which significantly increased wages and job opportunities for non-college-educated men, leading to increased births both within and outside of marriage. Contrary to popular beliefs, the study found no significant increase in marriage rates despite higher earnings. They also compare results with older economic booms and explore the influence of changing social norms. The hosts highlight other relevant studies on job displacement, lottery winnings, and their effects on fertility and marriage, ultimately emphasizing that simple financial solutions alone are insufficient to boost fertility rates significantly without addressing deeper cultural and social issues. The conversation rounds off with humorous anecdotes about their personal lives and parenting experiences, offering a reflective and engaging exploration of these complex topics.
[00:00:00]
Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about some studies that recently came out. Well, some recently came out, some came out a while ago. But looking at the topic of how earnings affect marriage rates and fertility rates and that surprisingly. For males, they no longer seem to increase marriage.
Or, I mean, who goes against the narrative that you always hear on the right? Yeah, this
Simone Collins: is important. In fact, we did an episode in which we read one of Arctotherium's articles on Aporia, where he basically posited that The solution to birth rates would be to effectively economically disempower women by sort of removing them from bureaucratic roles or eliminating those roles entirely, and to economically re empower men with a supposition that this will increase marriage rates.
Turns out that's not how it plays out in reality, at least in a post crisis world. Women earning money and having careers era.
Malcolm Collins: [00:01:00] Yeah. All right. So i'll start here with the first study This is a new one that I found really interesting male earnings marriageable men and the non maritable fertility evidence from the fracking boom so this study exploited the economic shock from fracking booms across the U.
S. regions. From 1997 to 2012, fracking created localized economic booms that significantly increased wages for non college educated men. They examined how marriage and birth rates responded to these economic improvements. Key findings, labor market effects. Fracking booms increased earnings for men without college degrees by 4.
4 percent. Per thousand dollars of new production per capital job opportunities also increased for these men with spillover effects beyond the oil and gas industry birth effects, both marital and non marital births increased in response to fracking booms. The increase was statistically significant for both types of births to suggest children are quote unquote normal goods.
People have more when income rises. [00:02:00] So I need to break down that a little bit because another study is going to look at this as well. Which is to say that there are some types of goods that people consume more of as income declines or economic slumps. Oh,
Simone Collins: oh, yeah, like I remember when we used to work in the private equity world more.
One, one period a group of investors were like, Oh yeah, we love nail salons because during recessions, women go to them more because it's like one of those small indulgences that they can still afford. Even if they want to
Malcolm Collins: buy more of like fancy soaps, fancy soaps, fancy soap company people do more on What are some of the other things people do more on?
They do more entertainment. They do more video games. Video games go up in rece
Published on 8 months, 4 weeks ago