If you're enjoying a life of wedded bliss, congratulations on beating some impressive odds.
According to Bloomberg, married Americans are now the minority.
In the US, fewer people are getting hitched than before, and young Americans are putting off marriage for longer than ever before.
In 1962, half of 21-year-olds and 90% of 30-year-olds had been married at least once. In 2014, only 8% of 21-year-olds and 55% of 30-year-olds had been married.
For those who have beaten the odds, marriage will ultimately impact many facets of your success.
These studies will begin to unpack how that could be a good thing:
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Marrying your best friend makes you really, really happy
A recent study on marital satisfaction released by the National Bureau of Economic Research and previously reported on by Business Insider suggests that the happiest people are those who are married to their best friends.
Controlling for premarital happiness, the study concluded that, overall, marriage leads to increased well-being.
And the study found that those who consider their spouse or partner to be their best friend get about twice as much life satisfaction from marriage as other married people.
The authors concluded that partners can provide each other with a unique kind of social support and help each other overcome some of life's biggest challenges, and people with the most difficult lives — for example, middle-aged people, who often experience a dip in personal well-being — can benefit the most.
Married people get some monetary bonuses
According to two Atlantic writers who crunched some numbers, married women can pay as much as $1 million less than their single counterparts over a lifetime.
The writers looked at the tax penalties and bonuses, as well as living costs like health spending and housing costs.
According to the Tax Policy Center, a married couple suffers a "marriage penalty" if they pay more income tax as a married couple than they would have as two single individuals. A couple receives a "marriage bonus" if they pay less income tax as a married couple than they would have as two single individuals.
When couples combine their incomes, especially when they have similar incomes, this can push them into a higher tax bracket, which would result in a higher tax rate.
In addition to the tax break you receive from filing jointly, couples are more likely to receive a marriage bonus when spouses earn different amounts.
There are a lot of factors affecting marriage penalties and bonuses, but generally, according to the US Department of the Treasury Office of Tax Analysis, more married couples under the age of 65 filing joint tax returns on average see bonuses than penalties.
According to the BLS data the Atlantic writers looked at, couples also spent on average 6.9% of their annual income on their health, while single men spent only 3.9% and single women spent 7.9%.
And when it came to housing, couples spent on average 23.9% of their annual income, compared to single men who spent 30.3% and single women who spend 39.8%.
By combining resources and splitting costs, married people have the edge on all kinds of day-to-day expenses in addition to rent or mortgage: One cable bill, one utilities bill, and shared groceries can all lead to big savings.
Marriage results in a pay premium for men
A recent study conducted by W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, and Robert Lerman, an economics professor at American University, suggests that men see bigger salaries when they're married compared to their single counterparts.
According to the study results, married men between 28 and 30 years old earn around $15,900 more a year in individual income compared to their single counterparts, while married men between 44 and 46 years old make $18,800 more than single men of the same ages.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider