TY - RPRT AU - Malcolm, Michael AU - Naufal, George S TI - Are Pornography and Marriage Substitutes for Young Men? PY - 2014/Nov/ PB - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) CY - Bonn T2 - IZA Discussion Paper IS - 8679 UR - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp8679 AB - Substitutes for marital sexual gratification may impact the decision to marry. Proliferation of the Internet has made pornography an increasingly low-cost substitute. We investigate the effect of Internet usage, and of pornography consumption specifically, on the marital status of young men. We show that increased Internet usage is negatively associated with marriage formation. Pornography consumption specifically has an even stronger effect. Instrumental variables and a number of robustness checks suggest that the effect is causal. KW - divorce KW - marital formation KW - pornography ER -