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/-~CZ) roductivity, efficiency, ^-^specialization... these issues are not usually associated with marriage. Beyond love and A commitment, JR however, these less-than-romantic fac-tors can be important—at least to economists. Sta-tistics show that married men earn approximately 11 percent more per hour than men who have never been married, even after controlling for work experience, edu-cation, age and other fac-tors. ' Economists also find that divorced or separated men make about 9 percent more than never-married men do. The wage gap, present at all ages, is even wider for those 45 and older. (See chart.) Why does this premium occur? Some attribute it to employer dis-crimination. Others believe that married men make more money because marriage makes them more productive, while still others say that highly productive men are more likely to be married. Employer Discrimination? A common perception is that employers ' bias may be responsible for the fact that married men earn higher wages. According to this theory, employers take a man's marital status as a signal of how stable or responsi-ble he is and discriminate accordingly. Alternatively, the employers might, either consciously or unconsciously, give preference to married men, all other things equal, when considering promotions and raises on the grounds that the married employee has a fam-ily to support. This kind of behavior, like most discrimination, is hard to demon-strate. If one believes, however, that the social ideas of the importance of marriage in the United States have changed (for example, marriage no longer implies the responsibility to support a family), it might be worth-while to examine the wage premium over time. Indeed, economist