Marriage and State-Level Economic Outcomes
Abstract
Past research has examined various state-level measures that predict state economic growth and other economic and social indicators. This research has largely ignored the potential role of family structure in contributing to state-level outcomes, despite the extensive literature on links between family structure and economic outcomes at the individual level. We estimated a state-level panel model and found that both the proportion of adults and the proportion of parents who are married are strongly related to important state-level economic outcomes, including economic growth, median household income, median personal income, and poverty.
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Adam H. Shumway
Economist
I’m an economist at the US Census Bureau. I conduct disclosure avoidance review for Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDCs) and research synthetic data and differential privacy. I am a trained labor economist with interests in historic data and occupational licensing. My dissertation used physician directories from the past 100 years to study the rural physician shortage.