Boomer Marriage Relationship to Building Wealth
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Although the Baby Boomer generation has been credited with escalating divorce rates, building wealth through a marriage relationship gets little press. The economic benefits of marriage are significant, not only for society, but for the married couple.
Consider this quote from Rutgers University's 2007 State of Our Unions report:
"Marriage is a wealth generating institution. Married couples create more economic assets on average than do otherwise similar singles or cohabiting couples. Individuals who are not continuously married have significantly lower wealth than those who remain married throughout their lives.Compared to those continuously married, those who never married have a reduction in wealth of 75% and those who divorced and didn't remarry have a reduction of 73%."
Why do married women and married men generate a higher monetary wealth that those who are not married? One consideration is that people who are inclined to create wealth are the ones most likely to get and stay married. According to the Rutgers report, there is a wealth-generating bonus that comes from the marriage relationship in the actual institution of marriage.
That bonus includes realizing an economy of scale, since two can live more cheaply than one. One home, one mortgage payment. One set of regular living expenses, instead of two sets.
Not only that, with a long-term personal friendship that marriage provides, each partner can specialize in his or her own skills, develop them as strengths and depend on his or her partner to cover the areas of weakness. This works very well when the individual talents of a couple complement each other, like in finance and math, home building, or creativity and management.
Research shows that married couples invest and save more for the future. With savings and the opportunity for dual incomes, baby boomer marriages can manage life uncertainties such as job loss or illness. Social norms of marriage encourage healthy, productive behavior. Married men tend to become more economically productive after marriage, normally earning between 10 and 40 percent more than unmarried men with similar job experience and education.
In addition, married couples receive more work-related and government-provided support, like tax breaks, as well as help and support from two sets of in-laws and friends.
A marriage has a tremendous economic impact on society. The opposite of building wealth is creating poverty. Consistent research has revealed that both unmarried childbearing and divorce increase the chances of poverty in children. According to the research published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, the majority of children who grow up outside of married families have experienced at least one year of dire poverty.
Marriages that end in divorce also are very costly to the public. For example, experts estimate that the 1.4 million divorces in the United States in 2002 cost taxpayers $30 billion from the higher use of food stamps, public housing as well as increased bankruptcies and juvenile delinquency.
Baby boomers can build a nest egg of wealth and security through a sound marriage relationship that benefits themselves, their families and society.
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