MARITAL
ASSETS
Topics: Divorce; Faithfulness; Finances; Lifestyle; Love; Loyalty; Marriage; Money; Possessions; Poverty; Prosperity; Relationships; Riches; Teamwork; Wealth
References: Malachi 2:16; Matthew 19:1–9; Mark 10:1–12; 1 Corinthians 7:10–11
People who marry and stay hitched accumulate nearly twice as much wealth as those who are single or divorced.
That’s what a researcher at Ohio State University discovered. Economist Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State’s Center for Human Resource Research tracked the financial and marital status of more than 9,000 people from 1985 to 2000. During that time, married people amassed 93 percent more wealth than single or divorced people.
Wealth was defined as a participant’s total assets, such as bank accounts, stocks, bonds, and real estate, minus outstanding debt, such as a mortgage. The data came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a study funded by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has repeatedly surveyed the same individuals over time.
According to the report, published in the Journal of Sociology, people who married and stayed married showed a sharp wealth expansion after their wedding, growing to an average of about $43,000 by the tenth year of marriage. For single people, assets grew from less than $2,000 at the start of the survey to about $11,000 by the fifteenth year.
Those who divorced saw their wealth shrink by 77 percent—a larger decline than would occur by simply splitting a couple’s assets in half. “You lose economies of scale in divorce—you need two places to live, two cars,” Zagorsky says. “Divorce is quite expensive, paying for lawyers and court fees. Divorce is also time-consuming. It may take time away from work, which also reduces many people’s incomes.” In addition, divorce weakens the incentive to work harder in the future, particularly if a percentage of income is garnished to pay alimony.
On the other hand, wedded bliss has rich rewards: “Married people boosted their wealth by about 4 percent each year—just as a result of being married—with all other factors held constant.”
—Laura Rouley, “Wedded, Wealthy, and Wise,” finance.yahoo.com (January 27, 2006)