Marriage patterns have undergone many changes in the last forty years in most developed countries. The findings of the study “Contemporary trends in marriage and divorce in Israel” by Prof. Alex Weinerv, show a decrease in the marriage rate and an increase in the number of singles and singles. On top of that, there is an increase in the number of couples who live in shared residences and are in a relationship without marriage – cohabitation.
The declines in marriage rates and the increases in singleness rates are very substantial and show that in recent years Israel is becoming less marriage-oriented.
Despite this decrease, another study by the Taub Center, “In happiness and wealth? The marriage premium in the Israeli labor market”, conducted by researchers Michael Davoy, Prof. Gil Epstein and Prof. Avi Weiss, examined the relationship between marriage and wages and found that married workers and female workers earn higher wages than unmarried workers.
A decrease in the marriage rate
In the years before the corona virus, there was a decrease in the overall marriage rate. Among Jewish women, the decrease in the percentage of women expected to marry at least once by the age of 55 was sharp – from a rate of more than 80% in 2014-2012 to 70% in 2019. Among Muslim and Druze women there was a drop to just under 75%. For Christian women, the decline began earlier and the rate has stabilized around 70% since 2016. The overall marriage rate of Jewish, Christian and Druze men fell between 2015 and 2019 to below 70%. Among Muslim men the decline started later: in the years 2010-2016 it was on average 85%, and by 2019 it had dropped to 78%.
For the most part, these decreases are due to an increase in the number of single men and women. That is, despite an increase in the number of couples living in cohabitation (living together without marriage), their proportion of all cohabiting partnerships in Israel remained stable throughout the entire period between 2013 and 2020 and stood at about 5%. This rate is much lower than the rate reported in other developed countries in 2013 – 12% in the US, 13% in Germany, 14% in Ireland, 21% in the Netherlands, 24% in Denmark and 27% in Norway. The study indicates signs of a transition from cohabitation to marriage among couples in their thirties.
Prof. Weinerv refers to the research findings and says: “If it weren’t for the high marriage rates in Israel, the level of inequality would probably be higher, life expectancy would be lower and people would be less happy. For this reason, any change in marriage patterns in Israel deserves attention.”
The study shows that the probability of a currently married man to work is 10 percentage points higher than that of his never-married counterpart. Formerly married but currently single men have a 3 percentage point advantage in the probability of working over their never-married counterparts. Among women, on the other hand, currently married women are expected to work with a lower probability of about 2 percentage points than single women, while divorced, separated and widowed women are expected to work with a higher probability of about 2 percentage points than single women.
Regarding wages, the average hourly wage of married men is about 30% higher than that of their single counterparts (after controlling for other variables), and this advantage is completely erased for those who were previously married but are not married. For married women, the premium is lower – they earn about 20% more than single women, but only half of this advantage is expected to survive for those who are no longer married.
As mentioned, among married men the probability of working is 10 percentage points higher than that of single men. When broken down by nationality, the difference is 8-9 percentage points among Jews and almost 16 percentage points among non-Jews. Non-Ashkenazi Jewish women are less employed, especially after the marriage ends. In contrast, among Ashkenazi Jewish women and among non-Jewish women, current or past marriages do not correspond to higher employment, and among non-Jewish women they even correspond to lower employment.
Third-generation Jewish married men of mixed origin (Ashkenazi and Mizrachi) enjoy the highest premium and earn 36.5% more than unmarried men, followed by Ashkenazi men and Mizrachi men, with premiums of about 25%-27%. Non-Jewish married men get drunk like single men.
Among married women the premium is lower. Married Ashkenazi women enjoy about 62% of the premium of Ashkenazi men, while non-Ashkenazi Jewish women enjoy 84%-87% of the premium of non-Ashkenazi men. Divorced, separated and widowed non-Ashkenazi Jews enjoy most of the premium of their married counterparts, while among the Ashkenazi the premium is exclusive to current marriages. This, as mentioned, is in contrast to men – among whom the divorced, separated and widowed do not earn more than the singles on average.
Among non-Jewish women, current and past marriages correspond to a negative premium – wages are about 10% and 16% lower than that of single women, respectively – this is in addition to the negative relationship between current and past marriages and employment in this group.
Prof. Avi Weiss, president of the Taub Center and one of the authors of the study, explains: “Marriage premium is a phenomenon known all over the world, and it has various explanations. In this study, we checked whether the premiums seen in other countries exist to the same extent in Israel and found that despite these and other differences, the situation in Israel is no different Substantial than what exists in other developed countries.”
The Taub Center for Social Policy Research in Israel is an independent and non-partisan research institution that deals with economic and social issues. The center provides policy makers and the public with research and data on some of the most important issues that Israel faces in the fields of education, health, welfare, the labor market and economic policy, in order to influence the decision-making processes in Israel and improve the well-being of all the country’s residents.