Age at Marriage, Family Duration and Individual's Income: An Economic Analysis of Marriage Benefits

The focus of this paper is to investigate economic analysis of the relationship between marriage benefits to age at marriage and its duration. Economic theory helps to understand that family formation has some benefits that emerge in various aspects. One of the benefits of marriage –such that is observed in literature of family– can be the increase of the income of couples after family formation. Accordingly, it is expected that age and duration of marriage affect individual's income that these effects are studied in current essay. Two samples are used to test hypotheses that include 415 married men and 409 married women. Data have gathered from Tehran by questionnaire. Results show that age at marriage and duration of living in spousal relation has positive and negative effect on income respectively. These findings imply that education is important factor which causes this reality. Education can postpone marriage and also increase the income in lifetime.