A large study of nearly 77,000 Swedish lottery players suggests that sudden wealth can subtly reshape family life, particularly for men. Male winners became more likely to marry and have children, while female winners experienced a temporary increase in divorce risk following a substantial win.
The research, published in the Journal of Human Resources, provides rare causal evidence of how money influences marriage, divorce and fertility. By examining lottery outcomes over a decade, economists were able to distinguish the effects of wealth from other factors, including education and ambition.
How economists tested money and marriage
Economists have long suggested that people make family decisions by weighing their expected satisfaction with marriage, single life and parenthood. However, observing that wealthier individuals marry more frequently does not establish that money itself causes those decisions.
To address this problem, researchers examined three major Swedish lotteries in which prize amounts were essentially random among comparable players. By comparing participants with identical ticket patterns who received different winnings, the team approximated a randomized experiment involving sudden changes in wealth.
The study linked 76,859 adult lottery players, aged 18 to 44 when they won, to detailed government records. Swedish authorities track marriages, divorces and births, allowing researchers to examine participants’ family circumstances two, five and ten years after their winnings.
Lottery wins and the marriage gap
A post-tax prize of 1 million Swedish kronor, equivalent to approximately $140,000 in 2010, increased the probability that unmarried male winners would marry within five years by 4.7 percentage points. Compared with a baseline marriage rate of around 16 percent, this represented roughly a 30 percent relative increase.
The effect was strongest among men whose incomes had been below the median before winning, suggesting that greater financial security may help them reach a perceived threshold for marriage. Among women, an equivalent prize produced only a small and statistically uncertain change in marriage rates.
The authors caution that the difference between men and women is suggestive rather than conclusive. Nevertheless, they argue that the pattern likely reflects differences in preferences and constraints between genders, even within Sweden’s relatively egalitarian society.
Divorce risk rises for some women
The most pronounced gender difference emerged in divorce rates. Married women who received a windfall of 1 million kronor saw their probability of divorcing within two years nearly double, rising from approximately 4 percent to almost 8 percent. This increase diminished over longer periods.
The temporary rise was concentrated among women with lower incomes before their lottery wins, suggesting that financial independence may have played an important role. The authors believe some of these marriages were already experiencing difficulties, with the additional money making previously unaffordable separations possible.
For men, researchers found some evidence that lottery winnings reduced divorce risk, although the results were less robust. When older participants were included in the analysis, the apparent protective effect on men’s marriages weakened considerably and sometimes disappeared.
Fertility responds modestly to windfalls
Over ten years, sudden wealth was also associated with a modest increase in fertility, particularly among men. A 1 million kronor prize was linked to 0.056 additional children for male winners, representing approximately a 14 percent increase in the number of children they had during the study period.
Women’s fertility increased only slightly after a win, and the change was statistically uncertain. The difference between men and women was most apparent among winners older than 35, which the authors partly attribute to biological limitations on childbearing at older ages.
Overall, the effect of wealth on fertility remained modest. Across the full sample, a 1 million kronor windfall corresponded to approximately 0.033 additional children over a decade. Researchers estimated that generating one additional birth would require average windfalls of roughly 30 million kronor.
Implications for policy and society
The findings come as many high-income countries face fertility rates below the replacement level of approximately 2.1 children per woman. Governments have considered whether financial transfers or tax incentives could meaningfully increase birth rates or encourage marriage.
The Swedish lottery evidence suggests that although money influences family decisions, it is a relatively blunt and expensive policy instrument. A combined analysis of several lottery studies found that each additional $100,000 in unearned wealth increased a single person’s probability of marrying within five years by only about 1.2 percentage points.
The authors caution against assuming that policies increasing everyone’s income would produce the same effects as individual lottery winnings. If some of the marriage increase results from improved financial standing relative to other men, broad income gains might have a smaller impact on marriage and fertility.
Limits of the Swedish evidence
Experts emphasize that the findings reflect average responses within a particular social and economic environment. Sweden offers generous welfare protections, relatively few legal obstacles to divorce and widespread acceptance of non-traditional family arrangements compared with many other countries.
In societies where divorce carries greater financial or social consequences, or where traditional gender expectations are stronger, sudden wealth could influence family decisions differently. Researchers also lacked direct information about marital satisfaction, relationship conflict and how couples divided their property.
Outside commentators say the study’s methods and large dataset provide strong grounds for confidence in its central findings concerning marriage, divorce timing and modest fertility changes. However, they recommend further research connecting unexpected wealth to detailed measures of relationship quality and decision-making power within households.
The authors conclude that sudden wealth can encourage some people to marry, have children or divorce, but it rarely transforms family life overnight. Instead, money appears to influence the timing and feasibility of decisions individuals may already have been considering, with notably different patterns emerging among men and women.
