Economics for reactionaries

It’s a commonplace that Melanie Phillips talks rubbish. So, in the spirit of irresponsibly challenging received wisdom, here are three unrelated recent economic papers which suggest she doesn’t.
1. Heterosexual marriage is less oppressive than same-sex unions.  Sonia Orrefice shows that inequalities of bargaining power matter in all relationships. If one partner is older or poorer than the other, he or she has less bargaining power in the relationship and as a result goes out to work longer hours than the younger or richer partner.
But these inequalities of bargaining power affect working hours more in lesbian and gay couples than they do for married couples. Same-sex unions, then, aren’t an oasis of equality - quite the opposite.
2. Divorce is bad for women. This paper (pdf) studies the long-run effects of the legalization of divorce in several European countries and concludes:

We find that girls raised when divorce is legal have lower wages, earnings and income as adults compared with women who grew up under illegal divorce.

3. Islam is bad for one’s health. This paper (ungated version here) says:

We use the Islamic holy month of Ramadan as a natural experiment for evaluating the short and long-term effects of fasting during pregnancy…we show that in utero exposure to Ramadan among Arab births results in lower birthweight and reduced gestation length…Using Census data in Uganda we also find that Muslims who were born nine months after Ramadan are 22 percent (p =0.02) more likely to be disabled as adults.

Don’t shoot. I’m just the messenger.

Comments

[Recusant]

I don't think you needed either Melanie Phillips or research papers to have known that: common sense might have got you most of the way.

[john b]

The point is, 'common sense' in policymaking usually translates to 'reactionary Mel P nonsense that's not backed up by any evidence' (e.g. prison works, minimum wages cost jobs, immigrants are bad for society, gays are paedophiles, etc).

These studies are interesting precisely because they're an unusual example of 'common sense' not being wrong.

[jameshigham]

Heterosexual marriage is less oppressive than same-sex unions.

Did it require confirmation?

[James]

You seem to have omitted an important detail from your description of the Sonia Orrefice paper. The paper appears to show that heterosexual marriage is less oppressive than same-sex or heterosexual co-habiting. This could be read to support the idea that same-sex couples should be able to get married as this will lead to less oppressive relationships.

[Chris Williams]

What James said. If Orrefice (a surname last heard in the Rowan Atkinson 'Register' sketch) is right, then the factors that produce inequality in relationships will be present to the same extent in same-sex cohabitation. Same-sex marriage, by codifying the rights of both partners, is thus likely to lead to a lessening of inequality. Perhaps. It would be worth a look, though.

Certainly there's nothing in this research which implies that legally recognising more same-sex relationships increases inequality, so long as we make the reasonable assumption that same-sex cohabitation is going to happen anyway.

[reason]

It seems to me that the lesson of point three is Moslems need to plan their pregnancies carefully.

[Chris Williams]

With regard to number three, there's a lot of fatwa about which says: "Don't fast if you're ill or it will hurt you." I would predict that some of it is likely to reflect this finding once it's confirmed.

Being as Sunni Islam lacks a Pope right now, of course there's also quite a bit of fatwa that says "Fast!" - but if I were to look hard enough I could probably find enough mad Christian fasters to register damage on a survey. Hmm. . . the effects of Lent ought to be traceable if there are any - has anyone ever looked?

[Dave Weeden]

Chris, I really can't see your point @ 1. Who is supposed to claim that same-sex marriages represent 'an oasis of equality' between the partners? It's not about equality or otherwise in the relationships: it's about equal rights for gays and lesbians. I'm also not really clued up about the richer/poorer partner thing. One partner will very likely earn more; the point about *marriage* is that the vows are supposed to be declarations of future equality. However, it seems to be less of an issue if - as is generally the case - people marry others who roughly match them in attractiveness, intelligence, age, and income.

Anyway, Mad Mel's objections seem to be grounded in the unnaturalness of homosexuality and have little to do with equality.

Divorce may be bad for women. As novels like 'Anna Karenina' show (if novels can show anything, of course), no divorce can be catastrophic for women. Call me a moral relativist all you like, but I prefer lesser evils.

As for 3, Mel doesn't complain that Islam results in malnutured babies: she thinks it produces terrorists who want to cut off heads. Well, so does every other fanatical system, although the methods of disposing of apostates vary.