Not that kind of rivalry, but the kind spoken of in economics. GMU economist Bryan Caplan has a fascinating blog post in which he examines how rivalrous a married couple’s consumption bundle typically is with some aid from equivalence scales. Caplan takes an imaginary couple with the high earner making $60,000 and the low earner making $40,000 annually. Using four distinct empirical strategies,[ref](1) “Expert Statistical” measures for statistical purposes only (i.e. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OECD), (2) “Expert Program” focuses on defining social benefits (i.e. Swiss “base amount,” U.S. poverty line), (3) “Consumption” measures consumer spending constrained by disposable income,(4) “Subjective” is associated with particular income levels for families of given characteristics and their self-evaluation.[/ref] he finds that “the low-earning spouse makes out like a bandit. The surprise: The high-earning spouse gains as well – for all four ways to estimate real-world rivalry…[I]f one partner outearns the other by 50%, share-and-share-alike marriage raises the high-earner’s effective consumption by about 30%, and the low-earner’s effective consumption by about 100%. To quote Keanu, “Woh.””[ref]Caplan asks, “Is there any reason to prefer one method to the others? Yes. People have ample first-hand experience with household management, so the subjective approach is probably better than deferring to government statisticians’ opinions. And looking at actual consumption behavior is probably better than asking people what they think.”[/ref]
He concludes,
These calculations deliberately ignore all the evidence that marriage makes family income go up via the large male marriage premium minus the small female marriage penalty. So the true effect of marriage on economic well-being is probably even more massive than mere arithmetic suggests. Why then are economists – not to mention poverty activists – so apathetic?
See the full post for the calculations.