Never married and earnings: evidence from Russia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of civil status on wage earnings in post-Soviet Russia. Education and work experience are the key explanatory variables according to the Mincer function. In view of that, here, an extension of the Mincer equation is estimated, focusing on never married individuals versus other civil status (married people). Thus, testing the female wage penalty and the male wage premium hypotheses. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on dynamic panel data models, underlining the autoregressive nature of earnings, controlling for time-invariant independent variables and adding marriage as an explanatory variable. The models are estimated using longitudinal data over the years 2000-2017, taken from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. Findings The results indicate that never married Russians do not obtain higher levels of wage earnings in comparison with those who are married or correspond to other civil status. However, there is evidence supporting a wage premium for men and weak evidence of a penalty for women. That is, the regression results indicate a wage penalty for never married men and a wage premium for never married women, yet this last finding is not robust. Therefore, the general findings of this research only partially agree with the most recent evidence in developed countries, where marriage is not anymore associated with wages. Originality/value These findings are highly relevant for public policies related to family development, a major concern for the Russian Government during the last two decades. There is a common idea that avoiding marriage is associated with intentions to obtain higher levels of earnings, but this is a problem of myopia.