Marriage Promotion Policies Research Articles

Decomposing the crude divorce rate in five countries: Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, the UK, and Australia

ABSTRACTOver the past few decades, the level of divorce, measured by the crude divorce rate (CDR), has increased dramatically in both the East and the West, but has recently appeared to fall or level off in some countries. To investigate whether the recent decline or stabilisation of the CDRs reflects the real trends in divorce risk, a decomposition analysis was conducted on the changes in the CDRs over the past 20 years on two western and three East Asian countries, namely, the UK, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. The following is observed: the decline in the CDRs of the UK and Australia in the 1990s, and of Taiwan and Korea in the 2000s, was mainly due to shrinkage in the proportion of the married population rather than any reduction in divorce risk; only Australia experienced a genuine reduction in divorce risk between 2001 and 2011; and the continuous increase of Singapore’s divorce level between 1990 and 2010 may be is an unintentional effect of the government’s marriage promotion policies. The shift in the population age structure, and more importantly, the drastic decline in marriage, has seriously distorted the CDRs, making them unreliable indicators for monitoring divorce trends.

Socioeconomic variation in the association of marriage with depressive symptoms

Although the health-relevant resources that marriage is argued to provide vary by socioeconomic status (SES), little research has examined whether the association of marriage with psychological well-being varies by SES. Focusing on depressive symptoms as an outcome and using a two-stage Heckit procedure with multilevel modeling, results from analyses of four waves of data (n = 4340 person-waves) from the American Changing Lives Survey (ACL) shows that differences in depressive symptoms between never-married and married adults varies by adjusted household income. Depressive symptoms are highest among the never married, and differences from the married greatest, at the lowest levels of income. As income increases these differences are eliminated. The conditioning effect of income is partially mediated by financial security, self-efficacy, and social support from friends and relatives. The implications of these findings for U.S. marriage promotion policies are discussed.

Unequal Marriage Markets: Sex Ratios and First Marriage among Black and White Women

Using the marital events data from the American Community Survey for the first time, we examine the association between the quantity and characteristics of unmarried men and first marriage for Black and White women ages 20 to 45. We incorporate both unmarried sex ratios and the economic status of unmarried men within each racial group using multilevel logistic models. We find higher marriage odds in markets with more (same-race) unmarried men, holding constant women’s own characteristics. In addition, local men’s education and employment rates also predict higher odds of White women’s first marriage. The findings imply that if White and Black women experienced similar unmarried sex ratios in their local markets, the gap in first marriage rates would be much smaller. We conclude that marriage promotion policies may be ineffective in part because they are targeting women who face structural barriers to marriage in their local marriage markets.

“I'll Be There for You”: Teen Parents' Coparenting Relationships.

Marriage promotion policy agendas have focused research attention on coparenting relationships, but little is known about coparenting among teen parents. Qualitative interviews with 76 teen mothers and fathers, supplemented with site observations at a school and clinic, investigated coparenting relationships and those relationships' embeddedness in extended families and social institutions. We identified prevalent coparenting trajectories and analyzed individual-, interaction-, and institutional-level influences on coparenting. Coparenting trajectories diverged depending on whether the couple stayed together and assumed traditionally gendered parenting roles. Participants perceived that coparenting relationships strongly shaped their current and future socioeconomic, emotional, and practical circumstances and their success at "being there" for their child. Extended families, institutions, and social programs often pushed teen parents apart, although many participants felt they needed a functional relationship with the other parent. Coparenting relationships, considered jointly with extended families and social institutions, are fundamental for understanding teen parenthood and shaping effective social policies.

Teaching & Learning Guide for “Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality”

Teaching & Learning Guide for “Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality”

Repackaging the “Package Deal”

In the 1996 overhaul of federal welfare legislation, Congress included provisions to promote employment, marriage, and responsible fatherhood to prevent poverty among low-income families. Little previous research has focused on how marriage promotion policies construct paternal identity. Drawing on data from an 18-month study of a federally funded relationship skills program for low-income, unmarried parents, I analyze how responsible fatherhood policies attempt to shape ideas of successful fatherhood and masculinity in the service of the government’s pro-marriage, antipoverty agenda. The program promoted a class-specific version of what I call marital masculinity, one that seeks to redefine marriageability for low-income men by claiming that marriage comes before financial success and encourages fathers to earn more. It did this by targeting fathers’ masculine identities in two ways: first, by emasculating fathers who only provide financially for their children, and second, by promoting a highly gendered conception of paternal caregiving. By analyzing how this strategy can be understood as both empowering and controlling for low-income men, this research adds to the sociological literature on how welfare policies shape paternal identity and gendered family practices.

Making Marriage Promotion into Public Policy: The Epistemic Culture of a Statewide Initiative

Though political sociologists have sought to understand how self-interest influences politics and policymaking, little research has examined the mechanisms involved in the relationship between constructing knowledge and forming policy. This article extends the concept of epistemic culture to the field of policymaking to uncover the mechanisms of knowledge production in policy formation. It offers an extended case study of government marriage promotion policies that seek to fund and disseminate marriage education among poor couples with the goal of lifting them out of poverty. Based on an ethnography of a statewide marriage initiative in Oklahoma, this article maps out the parameters of an epistemic culture of marriage promotion shaped by three mechanisms: 1) The articulation of connections between policy, commonsense ideas, and extant epistemologies; 2) The formation of policy that consolidates research findings to quell controversy; and 3) The creation of networks to convince relevant actors of the importance of marriage promotion policy.

Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality

AbstractIn 1996, Congress overhauled welfare policy to promote marriage and work as ways to lift American families out of poverty. Almost all of the funding for governmental marriage promotion has been devoted to relationship skills programs intended to help couples strengthen their relationships, encourage them to marry, and thereby prevent poverty. Marriage promotion policy has sparked intense debate, especially over the connection between marriage and family inequality. While advocates of the policy argue the government should promote marriage because it fosters social and economic well‐being, critics challenge the assumption that marriage itself causes these benefits or will help lift poor families out of poverty. Recent sociological research on why poor and low‐income couples marry less finds that they tend not to marry if they cannot meet a specific economic threshold. This suggests that rather than promoting the view that relationship skills en route to marriage can help prevent poverty, marriage promotion policy could likely better serve disadvantaged families by acknowledging and addressing the socioeconomic roots of family inequality.

Not Just Maternalism: Marriage and Fatherhood in American Welfare Policy

The United States' 1996 welfare reforms are often interpreted as a historical break in transitioning from supporting motherhood to commodifiying women's labor. However, this cannot account for welfare reform's emphasis upon heterosexual marriage and fatherhood promotion. The paper traces continuities and shifts in over a century of familial regulation through American welfare policy, specifying the place of marriage promotion within welfare policy. Up until 1996, families were key sites of intervention through which the American welfare state was erected, especially through single women as mothers - not wives. However, as of the 1960s, concern with African American men's "failed" familial commitments turned policymakers toward concern over marriage promotion for women and men. While marriage "disincentives" for aid recipients were lifted in the 1960s, the 1996 reforms structured a new form of nuclear family governance actively promoting marriage rooted in, but distinct from, the previous. Given the historical absence of welfare policies available to poor men, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families' (TANF) marriage promotion policies have positioned poor women as nodes connecting the state to poor men, simultaneously structuring poor women as breadwinners, mothers, and wives. Recent welfare reform has also started to target poor men directly, especially in fatherhood and marriage promotion initiatives. The article highlights how, in addition to workfare policies, marriage promotion is a neoliberal policy shifting risk to the shoulders of the poor, aiming to produce "strong families" for the purposes of social security.

Shedding “light” on marriage: The influence of skin shade on marriage for black females

The inter-racial marriage gap that opened in the past 50 years is generally attributed to a decline in the availability of young black marriageable men. We contend that the associated shortage of desirable men in the marriage market provides those black men who are sought after with the opportunity to attain a high status spouse, which has placed a premium on black women with lighter skin. We provide evidence, based on data drawn from the Multi City Study of Urban Inequality, consistent with this hypothesis. Our theoretical analysis of the marriage market reveals that marriage promotion policies to increase the desire to marry on the part of young black women will serve to exacerbate the importance attached to skin shade.

Evidence That the Presence of a Half‐Sibling Negatively Impacts a Child's Personal Development

Abstract. This paper examines the relationship between a child's family structure and his or her development. While most prior research in this area has defined a child's family structure according to his or her relationship to adults in the household, this study examines the relationship of the child to not only adults but also other children in the household. We provide evidence that half‐siblings brought into the household from previous relationships affect the well‐being of children born into a subsequent marriage who live with both of their biological parents. Stepchildren and children living with both biological parents exhibited more behavior problems and scored worse on reading achievement tests when half‐siblings were present. In contrast, stepchildren living without half‐siblings in the home fared no worse than biological children without half‐siblings. These results not only highlight a previously overlooked at‐risk group (children living with half‐siblings brought into the household from a parent's prior relationship), but they also illustrate the potential ramifications of classifying children into family structures based on their individual relationship with the householders, rather than based on the family types. The authors illustrate the relevance of these findings to current policy‐making decisions regarding marriage promotion policies and child support legislation.

Do government sponsored marriage promotion policies place undue pressure on individual rights?

The dominance of social science research in the debate over the Bush Administration’s Healthy Marriage Initiative may explain why questions regarding the proper role of government in regulating adult intimacy have received little attention. Social science research focuses on outcomes such as well-being and health. In contrast, rights-based legal theory considers whether state action undermines the rights of individuals. In this article, I intend to shift the debate over marriage promotion policy from questions of child well-being to questions of individual rights. I will ask the following questions: Do individuals have a liberty interest in making their own choices about intimate relationships, such as marriage? Do federally-financed (and frequently state-run) marriage programs compromise this liberty interest? Are there any constitutional grounds for objecting to marriage promotion policy?

Single Mothers and Family Values

SUMMARY In recent years the federal government has made marriage promotion a central part of its welfare reform initiatives. These promotion efforts are based on the assumption that poor women, particularly women of color, have family attitudes that differ from those of other women. This article tests that assumption using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a nationally representative sample of births to single mothers in urban areas. Results show significant differences in family attitudes between married and unmarried White women, but few differences for women of color. In fact, unmarried women of color tend to be more traditional than White women. In addition, welfare recipients are similar to non-recipients in gender traditionalism and attitudes towards marriage, and low-income women often express the most support for traditional gender roles. Implications for marriage promotion policies are discussed.

Critiquing the Case for Marriage Promotion

This article argues that governmental policies to promote marriage fail to recognize the reality of domestic violence in many families’ lives. By minimizing and misrepresenting the role of domestic violence, these policies ultimately are self-defeating. After describing the recent history of welfare reform and marriage promotion policies, we briefly review the arguments advanced in favor of such policies. We then offer a critique of marriage promotion through the prism of social science research on domestic violence and explain how advocates largely ignore or misrepresent this research. Finally, we discuss the need to ground policy formation in the voices of those women whose lives such policies ultimately will affect.