A recent study by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada shows that marriage is very much linked to income.
Higher-income Canadians are very likely to be married, while their lowest income counterparts are very likely to be unmarried.
These findings may be a cause for concern since marriage itself is a positive way to create wealth.
“Policymakers who feel more comfortable talking about metrics than marriages need to understand that marriage could be one of the most important metrics,” said sociologist, Brad Wilcox, who was half of the team that compiled the research for the report.
The study released by IMFC features a video of people on the street being asked whether someone’s age or income would be a better indicator of whether that subject is married or not.
The people interviewed generally believed that age would be a better indicator of whether or not someone was married than income.
The number of families with married parents has been declining since 1976. This number dropped even more amongst the middle class and low income earners, causing the marriage gap to widen.
“The decline of marriage is starting to level off,” said Peter Jon Mitchell, senior researcher at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.
According to Why Marriage Matters: 20 Conclusions from the Social Sciences, “Divorce and unmarried childbearing increase poverty for both children and mothers, and married couples seem to build more wealth on average than singles or cohabiting couples.”
