Enforcing Family Values? The Effects of Marital Status on Clergy Earnings

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 1999 by Patricia M.Y. Chang, Paul Perl

Patricia M.Y. Chang [*]

This paper examines the effects of marital status on the earnings of Portestant clergy, paying particular attention to how gender mediates the effects of marriage and divorce. In Protestant denominations, we find that marriage has a positive effect on earnings for men, but not for women. We also find results that challenge the hypothesis that these extra earnings are indirect compensation for the "pastor's wife," who traditionally acts as an unpaid staff person when the pastor is hired. We find no difference between earnings of married men whose wives work full-time outside the church and those whose wives stay at home and support their husband's church activities. Interestingly, divorce does not depress earnings for men and has a positive effect on the earnings of women, relative to married women. The analysis suggests that divorced women tend to work more paid hours than married women. Analyses of clergy in conservative denominations reveal no negative effects of divorce on earnings. However, this may be d ue to the small number of divorced clergy in these conservative denominations. In general, these analyses shed light on how the relationships among marriage, family, and work in clergy occupations differ for men and women.

This paper examines the effects of marital status on clergy earnings. Since the late 1970's, debates over the status of homosexuals in the churches have engaged the attention of most Protestant denominations. An interesting consequence of this debate is that it has caused denominations to clarify their position not only on homosexuality, but more broadly in areas of human sexual relations and the family. The majority have defined positions that affirm heterosexual relations within the boundaries of marriage. In addition, they have focused attention on the importance of the family structure by linking responsibility for perceived problems of juvenile drug use, delinquency, and teen pregnancy to the breakdown of the traditional family structure through divorce, adultery, and the movement of women into the labor force. (Melton 1991; Hunter 1991). In some cases, this effort has borrowed directly from the political platform of the Christian Right, whose leaders have managed to place "traditional family values" on the agenda of numerous politicians running for office in the past decade (Hunter 1991). Given this strong emphasis on marriage and the traditional nuclear family, it is of interest to view how marital status is affecting the career outcomes of the clergy who lead Protestant churches. In this paper we compare the annual earnings of married, single, and divorced clergy, net of individual and organizational level differences, to discover the effects of marital status on career outcomes.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The Effects of Marriage on Earnings

Empirical research in secular occupations consistently shows that married men earn more than non-married men, net of education and experience (Pfeffer and Ross 1982; Dolton and Makepeace 1987; Korenman and Neumark 1991) and that this benefit tends to increase the longer a man has been married (Kenny 1983). There are two main explanations offered for this finding. The first is that marriage leads to a division of labor that allows men to spend more time on work because their spouses are providing social and domestic support (Becker 1985). This explanation parallels reports in interviews with clergy and in the limited research that has been done on the effects of family status on clergy attainment (Zikmund et at. 1998; Nesbitt 1995; Kleinman 1984; Field-Bibb 1991). In denominations allowing clergy to wed, marriage is normatively considered an asset to a church because the "pastor's wife" may be expected to act as a full-time unpaid volunteer for the church -- setting up coffee and refreshments after the worshi p service, visiting the sick, organizing fund-raisers, and leading the women's fellowship (Malony and Hunt 1991; Morgan and Morgan 1980).

The second explanation for the higher earnings of married over non-married men is that employers have a preference for married workers because they see marriage (at least for men) as signifying maturity and stability. Some research suggests that employers are willing to pay men more when they have a family to support (Bartlett and Callahan 1984). A possible reason for this is that men with families may be perceived by employers to be less likely to seek new employment to avoid jeopardizing the stability and support of their family. In pastoral work, maturity and stability are important characteristics for clergy, who are often viewed as role models and occupy positions of trust and intimacy with their parishioners. The clergy person is often invited to offer counsel in the private areas of parishioners's lives, where one would not normally admit another stranger. In Protestant churches, marriage may be viewed by some as an added "credential" signifying an understanding of the family dynamics which are often at the heart of parishioner's concerns. On the other hand, there seems to be more role ambiguity associated with an unmarried status, particularly for female clergy. Single female clergy often complain that they feel discriminated against in hiring because as unmarried women they are viewed as possibly either homosexual, "spouse stealers," or more likely to leave due to a future marriage (Zikmund et al. 1998).