Married with children: what remains when observable biases are removed from the reported male marriage wage premium

There is a substantial research literature that discusses and documents a wage premium for married men. Our meta-analysis of 59 studies and 661 estimates finds a marriage premium for US men of between 9% and 13% after misspecification and selection biases are filtered out. Results from this meta-regression analysis cast doubt upon both the 'selection' and the 'specialization' explanation for the marriage-wage premium but are consistent with the notion that marriage may cause men to become more stable and committed workers.