Love Actually? Dissecting the Marriage–Happiness Relationship

• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Date: 01 March 2015
• Author: Donata Bessey
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/asej.12045

Love Actually? Dissecting the

Marriage–Happiness Relationship*

Donata Bessey

Received 10 August 2012; accepted 24 September 2014

Using theoretical concepts based on identity economics, the present paper empiri-

cally tests the idea that adherence to social norms to get married can provide an

additional utility gain from marriage. Norms to get married should be stronger

among more traditionalist individuals, so they should put more emphasis on the

mere fact of getting married and put less emphasis on match quality. In the

empirical analysis, we used the East Asian Social Survey to estimate and compare

both OLS and instrumental variables results. In line with the theoretical predic-

tions, there seems to be an identity-based happiness gain from marriage for

traditionalist individuals. These findings can be interpreted as evidence for identity-

based utility effects from marriage. The results also show important differences

between OLS and instrumental variables results, confirming the importance of

addressing endogeneity properly.

Keywords: marriage, subjective well-being, identity.

JEL classification codes: I31, J12.

doi: 10.1111/asej.12045

I. Motivation

One of the most pervasive findings from empirical happiness research is the

relationship between marital status and happiness: married people are found to be

happier than single, divorced, separated and widowed individuals in a consider-

able number of previous studies. See, for example, Diener et al. (1999) for a

review of the psychological literature on research in subjective well-being.

Most papers provide an explanation of the benefits from marriage in terms of

specialization of partners, mutual support and companionship, or the provision of

services for which there are no or imperfect markets (Kohler et al., 2005).

However, there might also be another source of beneficial effects from marriage:

social norms to marry and the resulting relief once one has complied with the

* Bessey: Yonsei University, EastAsia International College, Yonseidae-gil 1, 220-710 Wonju,

Republic of Korea. Email: dbessey@yonsei.ac.kr. I thank Simon Janssen, Taejeong Lee, Kimiko

Osawa and Ines Pelger as well as session participants at the 2011 annual meeting of the Canadian

Economics Association, at the 2012 annual meeting of the Korean Association for Applied Econom-

ics, seminar participants at Yonsei University and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The

East Asian Social Survey (EASS) is based on the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), the

Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS), the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS) and the Taiwan

Social Change Survey (TSCS), and distributed by the East Asian Social Survey Data Archive.

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Asian Economic Journal 2015, Vol. 29 No. 1, 21–39 21

© 2015 The Author

Asian Economic Journal © 2015 East Asian Economic Association and Wiley Publishing Pty Ltd

norms and is married. From an economic point of view, this relates to recent

research on identity economics (Akerlof and Kranton, 2000). In this paper, I test

the hypothesis that there are additional benefits from marriage because of the

existence of social norms using data from the 2006 East Asian Social Survey

(EASS), including data from Japan, Korea and Taiwan, China.

Despite important differences between the countries, traditional values in all

East Asian countries are deeply influenced by Confucian thought (Chang, 1997),

and its principles are still present in everyday life (Tu, 1996). The Confucianist

cultures of East Asia place a special emphasis on the family (Lee, 1989), with

resulting strong prescriptions to marry and continue the family line. This empha-

sis is an implication of filial piety, one of the five human relations in Confucian

thought. According to Mencius, the most important Confucian philosopher after

Confucius himself, it is the worst crime against filial piety to not leave any

posterity (Tang, 1995). Therefore, marriage as the only means of fathering legiti-

mate posterity is given special prominence in all countries influenced by Confu-

cian thought. Compared to, for example, European countries, marriage rates are

still comparatively high (although declining, most sharply in Japan) and cohabi-

tation is a relatively unknown phenomenon (Jones, 2004). This suggests that

social norms to marry are still relatively strong in East Asian countries and that

there might be the possibility of identity-based utility gains from marriage,

especially for traditionalist individuals.

In this paper, we empirically test the relationship between traditional values

and different possible happiness effects of marriage. Assuming that social norms

to marry are stronger among more traditionalist individuals, one would expect an

additional positive effect of the mere fact of being married for them because they

have complied with social norms. However, because traditionalists should place

more emphasis on the simple fact of being married and probably place less

emphasis on the quality of the match with their spouse, we do not expect a

positive effect stemming from marital satisfaction on happiness for them. The

empirical results show evidence in favor of these hypotheses and underline the

importance of taking endogeneity into account. In naive OLS estimations,

we found, that marital satisfaction, but not the mere fact of being married, has a

positive effect on happiness for non-traditionalists, and traditionalists seem to be

more likely to be in marriages with worse match quality, as measured by lower

marital satisfaction. We also find that, controlling for marital satisfaction, the

simple fact of being married has a negative effect on happiness for non-

traditionalists, while it has a positive albeit statistically insignificant effect on

happiness for traditionalists. Most of these results are not significant in instru-

mental variables (IV) estimations, where we addressed the possible endogeneity

of marital satisfaction, showing the importance of controlling for endogeneity.

However, the regressor capturing the fact of being married and the interaction

term for being a married traditionalist are highly significant together in both OLS

and IV estimations. These findings suggest that there are, indeed, identity-based

utility gains for traditionalists.

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL 22

© 2015 The Author

Asian Economic Journal © 2015 East Asian Economic Association and Wiley Publishing Pty Ltd