Marriage Propensities Research Articles

Family Norms and Declining First-Marriage Rates: The Role of Sibship Position in the Japanese Marriage Market

This study explores how changes in sibship composition associated with fertility decline may, in conjunction with entrenched family norms and expectations associated with specific sibship positions, impact marriage rates and further reduce fertility. We evaluate this possibility by focusing on Japan, a society characterized by half a century of below-replacement fertility and widely shared family norms that associate eldest (male) children with specific family obligations. Harmonic mean models allow us to quantify the contribution of changes in both marriage market composition with respect to sibship position and sibship-specific pairing propensities to the observed decline in marriage rates between 1980 and 2010. One important finding is that marriage propensities are lower for those pairings involving men and women whose sibship position signals a higher potential of caregiving obligations, especially only-children. Another is that changes in marriage propensities, rather than changing sibship composition, explain most of the observed decline in marriage rates. We also found that marriage propensity changes mitigate the impact of the changing sibship composition to some extent. However, the limited contribution of changing sibship composition to the decline in first-marriage rates provides little support for a self-reinforcing fertility decline via the relationship between changing sibship composition and marriage behavior.

Effects of extended paternity leave on family dynamics

AbstractObjectiveTest if an extended paternity quota impacts couples' division of leave and paid work, and if these changes influence union stability, marriage propensity, and further childbearing.BackgroundInfluential empirical and theoretical works have linked unequal division of household and paid work to increasing divorce rates and falling fertility. This suggests that paternity quota reforms may affect family dynamics if they facilitate more time alone for a father and his young child.MethodsWe analyze an extension of the Norwegian parental leave father's quota from 6 to 10 weeks with a regression discontinuity design. Full population data of parents of children born in a 4‐month window around the reform are drawn from Norwegian administrative registers (N = 9757).ResultsThe reform significantly increased the amount of leave taken by fathers and reduced the amount of leave taken by mothers, while his and her subsequent earnings were unmoved. Neither union stability, fertility nor cohabiters' propensity to marry were affected by the change in leave uptake.ConclusionThe reform succeeded in changing the division of paid parental leave between parents. However, these changes did not translate into changes in earnings, family stability, or parity progression. This suggests that policies that induce fathers to spend more time with their young child do not move the “stalled” gender revolution along.

MARRIAGE, MARKETS, AND MONEY: A COASIAN THEORY OF HOUSEHOLD FORMATION

This article integrates search-based models of marriage and money. We think about households as organizations, the way Coase thinks about firms, as alternatives to markets that become more attractive when transactions costs increase. In the model, individuals consume market- and home-produced goods, and home production is facilitated by marriage. Market frictions, including taxes, search, and bargaining problems, increase the marriage propensity. The inflation tax encourages marriage because being single is cash intensive. Microdata confirm singles use cash more than married people. We use macrodata over many countries to investigate how marriage responds to inflation, taxation, and other variables.

Trends in Childbearing, Marriage and Divorce in Sweden: An Update with Data up to 2012

We present an update of the main and parity-specific trends in vital family-demographic behavior in Sweden presented in Finnish Yearbook of Population Research 2011. Based on Swedish register data, previous time series of relative risks of childbearing, marriage, and divorce by calendar year are updated with another five years of observation. We demonstrate that more than a decade of increasing fertility levels turned into moderate fertility declines in 2011. This trend reversal pertains to all main birth orders. Marriage propensities continued to increase for mothers but stagnated for the childless. Since the turn of the century, trends in divorce risks seem to have leveled off, altogether reflecting a more prevalent role of marriage in recent Swedish family dynamics.

Fertility Shocks and Equilibrium Marriage-Rate Dynamics

Why did the marriage probability of single females in France after World War 1 rise 50% above its pre-war average, despite a 33% drop in the male/female singles ratio? We conjecture that war-time disruption of the marriage market generated an abnormal abundance of men with relatively high marriage propensities. Our model of matching over the lifecycle, when calibrated to pre-war data and two war-time shocks, succeeds in matching the French time path under the additional assumption of a pro-natalist post-war preference shock. We conclude that endogeneity issues make the sex ratio a potentially unreliable indicator of female marriage prospects.

East-West Couples: Distribution, Characteristics and Stability

SOEP data were used to examine relationships consisting of one partner socialised in West Germany and one in East Germany and who presently reside in the “old” (former West German) or “new” (newly formed East German) federal states. The estimated share of east-west couples among all marriages or cohabiting couples rises continuously within the observed period reaching approximately two and eleven percent respectively by 2009. The specific characteristics of east-west couples are that their employment-related division of labour is relatively egalitarian, above-average the partners are of different confessions and practice different religions, at least one of the partners is frequently divorced and there is also a strong tendency towards unmarried cohabitation. Besides the place of socialisation, the present place of residence has an independent impact on the economic situation, division of labour and marriage propensity. Analyses of relationship stability reveal that east-west couples exhibit a relatively high risk of separation. This is partly due to religious differences between the partners, but primarily to the low marriage propensity and the overrepresentation of divorced persons within this type of relationship.

Changing partner choice and marriage propensities by education in post-industrial Taiwan, 2000-2010

Background: Very little is known about recent marriage differentials by education in times of marriage decline and economic restructuring in East Asia. Objective: This study aims to contribute to family research in Asia by investigating educational variations in retreat from marriage and mate selection in Taiwan. Methods: This study applied Schoen's (1988) harmonic-mean two-sex marriage propensity approach to nationwide marriage registration data to examine the changing marriage patterns by education in Taiwan between 2000 and 2010. Results: The findings show that the drop in marriage rates is particularly drastic among the least educated. Marriage has become more prevalent and affordable for better-educated Taiwanese. Additionally, the proportion of educationally homogamous marriages has increased, and the share of female-hypergamous marriages of all heterogamy also increased from 2000 to 2010. Decomposition analyses show that these changes are mainly due to decreased marriage propensities, not to the availability of eligible partners. Educational and sex variations in marriage intentions, gender-role and marriage values, and the changing economic structure and financial well-being of young adults were investigated as potential causes. Conclusions: Period marriage differentials by education have reversed from negative to positive in post-millennium Taiwan. A continued reliance on men‟s economic resources is also observed. Differences in gender-role values and economic well-being across social groups are plausible reasons for these family changes. Comments: More research is needed to unravel the impact of education on men and women's family formation prospects and how social inequality may be reinforced and reproduced through matrimony in Asia.

Marital birth and early child outcomes: the moderating influence of marriage propensity.

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, the present study tested whether the benefits of a marital birth for early child development diminish as parents' risk of having a nonmarital birth increases (N = 2,285). It was hypothesized that a child's likelihood of being born to unmarried parents is partly a function of father characteristics that predict his capacity to promote child development. Results partially supported hypothesis. A positive association emerged between parental marriage and cognitive outcomes at age 3 only for children whose parents were likely to be married at the child's birth, suggesting average differences between children in married and unmarried families may overestimate the benefit of marriage in subpopulations most impacted by nonmarital birth.

Trends in Childbearing and Nuptiality in Sweden: An Update with Data up to 2007

We present an update of the main features of recent trends in vital family-demographic behavior in Sweden. For this purpose, time series of relative risks of childbearing, marriage, and divorce by calendar year are updated with another five years of observation added to previously published series. We demonstrate that fertility in Sweden continued its upward trend during much of the first decade of the 21st century. The rise pertains to all birth orders. It is driven by the halt in postponement of first childbearing at the younger ages and the continued fertility recuperation at higher ages. Marriage propensities increased as well, reversing a decades-long trend of decreasing marriage rates. The trend reversal comprises first marriages and remarriages alike. Interestingly, the increased popularity of marriage and childbearing is accompanied with a slight decline in divorce risks during the first decade of the new century.

Who and When Marries Whom?

In this analysis we assess the effects of different social charasteristics of individuals on their propensity for the first marriage taking into account the joint educational distribution of spouses. In line with the theoretical hypotheses and the findings of previous research, we have found a tendency for individuals with similar levels of education to marry one another. People with compulsory schooling and with university degrees are the most likely to marry homogamously. The odds of marrying people with equal or higher education are greater as individuals get older. However, the effect of the variable describing time out of school becomes smaller at the higher levels of the educational hierarchy, especially at the university level. This findings suggests the low-cost marriage market function of universities, the fact that these institutions collect students whose future socio-economic prospects re very homogeneous. Parental education has a consistent effecgt on marital behaviour. Well-educated individuals who possess higher levels of inherited educational capital appear to gain more advantage in the marriage market compared to their counterparts with less advantageous backgrounds. Among poorly educated people the lack of parental resources further decreases the likelihood of a „good match”. As for the historical trends are concerned, the likelihood of marriage with poorly educated candidates has declined the most; and in the case of better-educated potential spouses the marriage propensity has even increased, or at least has not decreased to a large extent. This tendency indicates a changing economic context for marriage. Modern long-term partnerships are based on the expectation that partners can make similarly valuable contributions to the marriage in order to maintain or increase the total wealth and success of the family.

The Effect of Male Wage Inequality on Female Age at First Marriage

A model in which women search for husbands characterized by their wages predicts increasing within-group male wage inequality, raises the expected value of continued marital search, and so lowers female marriage propensities. Using 1970, 1980, and 1990 census data, I test this hypothesis within geographically, racially, and educationally defined marriage markets. The estimates suggest rising male wage inequality accounted for 7% to 18% of the decline in the propensity to marry between 1970 and 1990 for white women and more-educated black women. Growing wage inequality appears to have had little effect on the marriage behavior of less-educated black women.

The Transition From Cohabitation to Marriage

In Sweden, cohabitation is the norm before marriage and is in many ways equal to marriage. By investigating the transition from cohabitation to marriage, this study seeks to clarify how those who marry differ from those who do not. The study uses the Swedish Family Survey of 1992 together with register data of marriages and births for the following 2 years. Information on partner's attitudes and marriage plans is obtained from a self-administered questionnaire. The risk of marriage for women who were cohabiting at the time of interview is analyzed with event history analysis. The results show that life course stage, economic gains in marriage, and family socialization predict whether cohabiting women will turn their unions into marriages. In addition, attitudes toward leisure and parenthood influence marriage propensities. Marriage plans explain some, but not all, of those effects.

The Decline in Marriage among African Americans: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Implications

The Decline in Marriage Among African Americans: Causes, Consequences, and Policy Implications. M. Belinda Tucker & Claudia Mitchell-Kernan (Eds.). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 1995. 397 pp. Hardcover ISBN 0-87154-887-9. $49.95; paper ISBN 087154-886-0, $19.95. This edited volume brings together a collection of chapters, emphasizing the causes, consequences, and policy implications of changing family formation among African Americans. Though declining marriage, female-headed families, and divorce rates are apparent throughout American society, African Americans are disproportionately represented with regard to getting married and staying married. The editors' intent is to stimulate discussion in our society as we attempt to redefine both marriage and family, at a time when the matter has become a grist for a rather vitriolic national debate (p. xix). The writings in this volume are interdisciplinary, reflecting the views of anthropologists, demographers, economists, historians, social and urban psychologists, as well as criminologists. This book consists of 11 chapters divided into four sections. Discussions of social, historical, and political issues that have shaped research on African American families are provided in Section One where myths are dispelled and new conceptual paradigms for examining family formation among African Americans are offered. Sociological contexts are included in Section Two. Attention is devoted to explicating the relationship of unemployment rates among Black males, adult sex-ratio imbalance, and marriage propensities between Black and White marriage rates. Consequences and correlates of African American marital decline are examined in Section Three. Microand macro-level factors are used to examine the interplay between individual perceptions of the marriage market and conformation structural assessment of relationships. A central issue in this section is: Do Black adults want to marry and expect to marry, given the societal portrayal of the limited availability of Black males? Section Four focuses on the consequences and policy implications of African American family formation. Cox (1940) and Wilson (1987) frame many of the points of view in this volume. That is, the fragile economic position of Black males in American society is linked to the prevalence of female-headed and economically stressed African American families. A sex-ratio imbalance is also offered as a central explanation. Variations in how this process occurs are evident throughout these chapters. For example, some authors provide persuasive arguments that there are deliberate efforts within the wider society to eradicate a segment of the Black male population because they are viewed as socially unwanted, superfluous, and marginal (p. …

Poverty and the Marital Behavior of Young Women

DIANE K. McLAuGHLiN The Pennsylvania State University DANIEL.L T. LICHTER The Pennsylvania State University* Marriage provides one route out of poverty and long-term reliance on welfare, yet little is known about the factors that encourage or impede marriage among poor, young women. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine first marriage transitions for poor young women and young women who are not poor. We find that the latter are more likely to marry than poor women, but poor women who have jobs are more likely to marry than those who do not have jobs. Poor Black women have the same probability of marriage as poor White women, after controlling for differences in economic independence, mate availability, and family culture and living arrangements. The receipt of welfare was not associated with marriage propensity for either poor women or women who are not poor. Lower mate availability and higher average welfare payments in a local area depressed the probability of marriage among poor women but had no influence on the probability of marriage among women who are not poor. Key Words: Afr American women, marriage, poverty, welfare. The rise in extramarital living arrangements and unmarried childbearing has contributed to increases in poverty among women and children. This pattern coincides with the erosion of public support of welfare for poor, single-parent families and raises new questions about the possible unintended consequences of existing welfare programs. Recently passed welfare reform legislation limits the lifetime receipt of welfare and requires poor women to find other means of economic support. Two options are employment and marriage. Recent research suggests that there are many more poor women who will be searching for jobs than there are available jobs (Jensen & Chitose, 1996) and that women who leave welfare for employment are more likely to return to welfare than women who leave welfare for marriage (Harris, 1996). Marriage may be an important way out of chronic poverty and long-term reliance on welfare. Unfortunately, recent studies provide only a limited understanding of the marital experiences of poor women, and even less is known about how economic factors, such as welfare benefits and employment, influence poor women's decisions to marry (Moffitt, 1992). This research addresses that void. Theoretical models of young women's transitions to marriage provide insights into the marriage process (Lichter, McLaughlin, Kephart, & Landry, 1992; Oppenheimer, 1988; South, 1993) but do not provide explicit hypotheses regarding the likelihood that poor women marry, compared with women who are not poor. Theories of economic independence, the local marriage markets, and cultural theories of marriage timing do not provide a clear picture of poor women's propensity to marry. Economic independence theories suggest that as women's education and earnings increase they will be less reliant on marriage for economic support and that women with greater economic independence will delay marriage. The availability of possible spouses and how that influences marriage timing are the basis for marriage market explanations of marital timing. Areas where there is a greater availability of unmarried men, especially men with high levels of education or good jobs, should encourage women's marriage. Finally, cultural explanations of marriage suggest that family background, attitudes toward women's roles, and beliefs about marriage influence women's decisions to marry. These theories provide mixed evidence of whether poor women are more or less likely to marry than women who are not poor. We examine these theories explicitly to evaluate their applicability to poor women's marital behavior. We empirically assess poor women's relative probability of marriage, and we test which theoretical explanations of marriage timing are best suited to poor women's marriage decisions and the marriage decisions of women who are not poor. …

Contextual Influences on Young Men's Transition to First Marriage

Competing theories of marriage formation are evaluated by merging several contextual variables primarily marriage market characteristics from the 1980 [U.S.] census with mens marital histories observed between 1979 and 1984 in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Discrete-time event history models reveal that net of conventional individual-level predictors a shortage of prospective partners in the local marriage market impedes white mens transition to first marriage. Womens aggregate economic independence measured in terms of the proportion of females in the local marriage market who are employed and in terms of the size of average AFDC payments also diminishes mens marriage propensities. Although earnings and home ownership facilitate mens marital transitions racial differences in socioeconomic and marriage market characteristics account for relatively little of the substantial racial differences in marriage rates. (EXCERPT)

The Widening Gap in Black and White Marriage Rates: The Impact of Population Composition and Differential Marriage Propensities

Data from the North Carolina Division of Health Services the Virginia Department of Health the 1970 Public Use Sample tapes and the 1980 Public Use Microdata tapes from the US Bureau of the Census show that marriage rates in Virginia and North Carolina declined between 1970 and 1980. Analysis of the data by race sex and educational level showed that the rate of black marriages declined substantially more than white marriage rates at all levels of education. This paper attempts to determine whether the decline in the black marriage rate is due to factors in the composition of the black population or to differences in the propensity of blacks to marry. Compositional differences include the following: 1) black women outnumber black men; 2) black women have more education than black men and therefore must marry down or not at all; and 3) fewer black men have the potential for stable remunerative employment which would qualify them as good providers. Differences in the propensity to marry include the following: 1) blacks are more likely to form consensual unions and rely more on kinship ties outside the nuclear family; 2) black women have low expectations of marriage especially as regards male financial support and they therefore fear being exploited; 3) low income black women fear that marriage will reduce their welfare benefits without the compensation of a regular income-earning husband; 4) public assistance enables black women to have children without marriage; 5) black men hold more traditional beliefs about womens role; and 6) educated black women do not want to marry men with less education. When the data are examined the real effect of compositional differences diminishes. There are more black women than men but the difference is exaggerated because black men are undercounted in census data by 1-44% depending on age and the corrected excess of black women is about the same as that for white women. Interracial marriages reduce the pool of eligible black men by only 2.7%. Moreover although black women do tend to marry men with less education than themselves this pattern is consequence of marital propensity rather than limited availability. Black marriage propensities decline substantially at all educational levels and the data clearly show that marriage propensities play a far larger role than compositional factors on the declining rate of black marriages.

The Harmonic Mean as the Basis of a Realistic Two-Sex Marriage Model

The "two-sex problem" is one of attempting to preserve the essential character of male and female rates of marriage (or birth), since the expression of those rates is influenced both by the age-sex composition of the population and the underlying age-sex schedule of preferences. The present paper focuses on marriage and advances a theoretically based, realistic, and conceptually simple solution. In the continuous case, where exact male and female ages are used, equation (11) provides a mathematical relationship which equates the sum of the male and female marriage propensities of the observed population with that of the model. When discrete age intervals are used, the two-sex consistency condition is given by equation (14) which equates observed and model population rates calculated using the harmonic means of the number of persons in the relevant male and female age groups. The harmonic mean consistency condition is shown to be fully sensitive to the competitive nature of the "marriage market." When compared with alternative approaches to the two-sex problem in the context of data for Sweden, 1961-64, the simple harmonic mean method yields results fairly similar to those of the other methods. None of the two-sex methods do particularly well at predicting the actual distribution of marriages, however. The likely reason is that the underlying marriage preferences changed, a circumstance which emphasizes the importance of carefully conceptualizing how observed behavior can be decomposed into the effects produced by age-sex composition and those produced by the underlying preferences.