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The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially, by Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher. New York: Doubleday, 2000. 258 pp. $24.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-385-- 50085-8.
The Case for Marriage summarizes social science evidence on the beneficial effects of being married for men and women and recommends policies to encourage marriage. Like the surgeon general issuing a warning against smoking, Waite and Gallagher's mission is to get out the message that the retreat from marriage has made us worse off.
The authors review research showing that married people report more satisfaction with their lives and fewer mental health problems. Despite stereotypes of "swinging singles," married people have sex more often than unmarried heterosexuals and enjoy it more. Marriage seems to improve men's earnings and is neutral on women's earnings (it is children that hurt women's earnings). Women gain access to men's earnings from marriage. Married people save more. Waite and Gallagher think the gains come because marriage encourages trust and cultivates love, because each partner's long-term commitment to the other encourages investment and provides some insurance against adversity, and because marriage allows efficiency gains from specialization. Some of the gains for men seem to come from the fact that they live less dangerous and risky lives when paired with women, a fact that criminologists using the "routine activities" perspective have noticed.
There is one reason to doubt whether the authors' main claim is correct: selection bias. For example, marriage...