Union Dissolution Research Articles

Union Disruption in Canada

:This article examines the trends and determinants of union dissolution in Canada using data from the 1995 Canadian General Social Survey, looking at the aggregate trends in Canadian unions and exploring the transition from cohabitation to either marriage or separation. A life-course perspective is used to assess both marital and nonmarital union stability. Both marital and nonmarital unions are combined and various determinants of their dissolution are considered.

Life Course Risks, Mobility Regimes, and Mobility Consequences: A Comparison of Sweden, Germany, and the United States

The analysis of intergenerational mobility has primarily used measures of social position that are functions of an individual’s occupation. Occupation‐based models of social mobility, however, have limitations that arguably have grown in recent decades. Meta‐analysis of available evidence for Sweden, western Germany, and the United States concerning occupational mobility, household income mobility, job displacement, union dissolution, and poverty dynamics shows the limitations of the individual‐level occupation‐based career‐trajectory approach to life course mobility. This article develops an alternative formulation at the household level, which focuses on cross‐national variation in the extent to which societal institutions influence the rate of events with the potential to change a household’s life conditions via the manipulation of incentives for mobility‐generating events, and the extent to which they mitigate the consequences of these events through social insurance. The combination of these institutional processes produces the distinctive characteristics of the mobility regimes of these countries.

Trends in Youth Sexual Initiation and Fertility in Developed Countries: 1960-1995

The widespread interest in recent changes in fertility, union formation, and union dissolution has largely focused on adult behaviors. Much less attention has been paid to changes in related youth behaviors that foreshadow and may shape adult behaviors. This article identifies some of the changes that have occurred in the timing of sexual initiation and fertility across Western industrialized countries since 1960. Documenting the similarities and differences in these patterns helps us to understand better how youth transition experiences differ across place. This article finds that patterns of youth sexual behavior are converging across developed countries. That is, within- and between-country variation in the timing of sexual initiation has decreased. There also has been a reduction and convergence in levels of teenage fertility, but the decline in fertility was more pronounced among non-English-speaking countries than among English-speaking countries, which has resulted in an increasing gap.

Life Course Risks, Mobility Regimes, and Mobility Consequences: A Comparison of Sweden, Germany, and the U.S.

Intragenerational mobility has been a central concern in sociology, especially in the latter half of the 20th century. Most of this analysis has proceeded using measures of social position that are functions of an individual's occupation. This approach has been based on two primary justifications. First, occupational mobility is a key attribute of labor market structure, and the labor market, along with the educational system, is the principal institution responsible for a country's structure of inequality. Second, occupation is an producing asset that provides an approximate measure of permanent income and standard of living. Occupation-based models of social mobility, however, have limitations that arguably have grown during the recent past. Meta-analysis of available evidence for Sweden, western Germany, and the United States concerning occupational mobility, household mobility, job displacement, union dissolution, and poverty dynamics shows the limitations of the individual-level occupation-based career-trajectory approach to life course mobility. An alternative formulation at the household rather than the individual level is developed that focuses on cross-national variation in the extent to which institutions influence the rate of class-altering events, and the extent to which they mitigate the consequences of these events. The combination of these two institutional processes produces the distinctive characteristics of the mobility regimes of these three countries.

Does a Currency Union Affect Trade? The Time Series Evidence

Does leaving a currency union reduce international trade? We answer this question using a large annual panel data set covering over 230 countries from 1948-97. During this sample over one hundred pairs of countries had currency union dissolutions; they experienced economically and statistically significant declines in bilateral trade, after accounting for other factors. Assuming symmetry, we estimate that a pair of countries that starts to use a common currency experiences a doubling in bilateral trade.

Losers and Winners: The Financial Consequences of Separation and Divorce for Men

Contrary to conventional thinking, the majority of partnered men in the United States lose economic status when their unions dissolve. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this analysis shows that for most men the primary source of economic decline after union dissolution is their inability to fully compensate for the loss of their partner's income. A secondary source of economic decline is an increase in compulsory and voluntary support payments. Welfare state tax and transfer mechanisms have a much smaller overall impact on changes in men 's living standards following separation. Although most men experience a decline in living standards following union dissolution, men's outcomes are heterogeneous, and the minority of men who relied on their partners for less than one-fifth of pre-dissolution income typically gain from separation and divorce. The data show a clear trend toward greater economic interdependence in American partnerships, and this trend appears to increase the proportion of men who suffer a reduced standard of living following separation.

Losers and Winners: The Financial Consequences of Separation and Divorce for Men

Contrary to conventional thinking, the majority of partnered men in the United States lose economic status when their unions dissolve. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this analysis shows that for most men the primary source of economic decline after union dissolution is their inability to fully compensate for the loss of their partner's income. A secondary source of economic decline is an increase in compulsory and voluntary support payments. Welfare state tax and transfer mechanisms have a much smaller overall impact on changes in men's living standards following separation. Although most men experience a decline in living standards following union dissolution, men's outcomes are heterogeneous, and the minority of men who relied on their partners for less than one-fifth of pre-dissolution income typically gain from separation and divorce. The data show a clear trend toward greater economic interdependence in American partnerships, and this trend appears to increase the proportion of men who suffer a reduced standard of living following separation.

When a Monetary Union Fails: A Parable

The political imperative is an important driving force behind the dissolution of monetary unions. But economic factors are also likely to play an important role. Using a two-country model of government finance in a common currency area, we suggest that when countries are very heterogeneous in terms of financing requirements or in terms of tolerance for inflation, one of them will benefit from achieving monetary independence. The results are contrasted to the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian crown area in the 1920s and especially to that of the ruble area in the 1990s.

Leaving your wife and your brothers: when polyandrous marriages fall apart

Polyandry challenges both traditional sociocultural and evolutionary understandings of marriage. Its existence calls into question the importance of female sexual exclusivity and reproduction in marriage, two fundamental aspects of the affinal bond in most other marital forms. How does polyandrous marriage persist? When does it dissolve? This paper examines marriage patterns in the fraternally polyandrous Tibetan communities of northwestern Nepal, highlighting the most important factors associated with both the maintenance and dissolution of polyandrous unions. Behavioral ecological analyses of polyandry to date have focused on univariate analyses of the economic and fertility correlates of the two primary marital forms observed in nominally polyandrous communities, polyandry and monogamy. In this analysis, multivariate regression and survival analysis are used to extend our understanding of the factors that precipitate partitioning among the polyandrous marriages in the study. Wealth, long thought to be a major force shaping marital decisions in these communities, is modeled in both quantity and quality in this study. This represents an important departure from previous studies, as analyses show that it is not only the amount of wealth that influences the stability of polyandrous marriages, but also the type of wealth and extent to which it is diversified over economic spheres. Univariate analyses show that amount of wealth and the size of the brother/co-husband set are both associated with the probability that a polyandrous marriage will partition. Though these results support earlier findings, multivariate analyses show that controlling for other factors reduces their importance.

Stravinsky: A Creative Spring: Russia and France, 1882-1934 (review)

When Alfredo Casella's 1926 biography of Igor Stravinsky was released (Igor Strawinski [Rome: Formiggini]), the already world-renowned Russian composer was still a relatively young man. By Stravinsky's death in 1971, nearly fifty more biographies were in print. Since then, his primary-source materials have become increasingly accessible, chiefly through the expansive repository of the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, but also (as a consequence of the Soviet Union's dissolution) through several Russian archives previously deemed off-limits to Western scholars. The pace of inquiry has quickened briskly and occasionally even magnificently, as in Richard Taruskin's monumentally informative Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through "Mavra" (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). A new wave of Stravinsky scholarship is cresting.

From Afghanistan to Chechnya: News Coverage by Izvestia and the New York Times

This study analyzed newspaper coverage of conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya by the New York Times and the Russian newspaper Izvestia to examine the impact of political change on news coverage. The Soviet Union's dissolution included dramatic changes to the Russian media system. In addition, the dissipation of the Cold War changed the foreign policy of the United States. A content analysis revealed that the changes to the media system in Russia had a profound impact on Izvestia's coverage, but political changes had little impact on the New York Times' coverage.

Entry or exit? A transition-probability approach to explaining the high prevalence of single motherhood among black women

I analyze the prevalence of single motherhood among black and non-Hispanic white women in terms of differences in entry and exit. Higher initial entry rates among black women, especially through unpartnered childbearing, account for slightly more than half the difference between blacks and whites in the prevalence of single motherhood. The remainder of the difference is due to black single mothers' much lower rates of exit through union formation and to their very high rates of reentry through dissolution of these later unions. Entry and exit rates through the 1990s imply a widening racial gap.

Beyond Marital Status: Partner History and Well-Being in Old Age

Applying a life course perspective to the relationship between well-being and partner status suggests that the well-being of older adults is not only influenced by their current marital status, but also by aspects of their partner history. Life history data from a recent Dutch survey are used to examine the relationship between partner history variables and loneliness (n = 3,390). Older adults who are currently not involved in a partner relationship are lonelier than older adults with a partner. Furthermore, loneliness increases with the number of union dissolutions that older adults have experienced and decreases with the time elapsed since the last dissolution. No differences in loneliness are found between widowed and divorced older adults. The loss or lack of a partner is more detrimental for males than for females. These differences remain after controlling for age, health, network size, income, and educational attainment. This suggests that it is difficult to compensate for the lack or loss of relationshipspecific benefits of having a partner, especially for males. Key Words: life course, loneliness, marital status, partner relationships, gender. One well-established finding in the literature on well-being is that marked differences in subjective well-being exist between categories of marital status, both in the general population and among older adults in particular. For instance, the married report higher levels of well-being than the unmarried with respect to happiness (Glenn & Weaver, 1988), morale (Balkwell, 1985), mental health (Gove, 1972; Hughes & Gove, 1981), life satisfaction (Acock & Hurlbert, 1993; Strain & Chappel, 1982), and loneliness (De Jong Gierveld, 1987; Perlman, 1988). Among the unmarried, older adults who have never been married, especially women, seem to fare better than the divorced and widowed (Dykstra, 1990, 1995; Essex & Nam, 1987; Lawton, Moss, & Kleban, 1984). The favorable well-being of married people is usually explained by stressing the importance of having a partner for the fulfillment of basic human needs and the provision of resources (Bowlby, 1969; Chappel & Badger, 1989). Those who are not married are differentiated on the basis of whether or not they have been married in the past, and if so, whether that marriage was dissolved by divorce or by the death of the spouse. Here, attention is usually focussed on the devastating effects of losing one's partner, be it through divorce or widowhood (Balkwell, 1985; Ferreiro, Warren, & Konanc, 1986). The focus on marital status implies an explicit emphasis on some aspects of the partner history of people, at the expense of other aspects that might be important as well, especially with respect to older persons' well-being. In recent years, proponents of the life course perspective (Elder, 1994; Moen, Dempster-McClain, & Williams, 1989, 1992; Stroebe, Stroebe, & Hansson, 1993) have stressed that paying attention to these other aspects of people's partner history, for instance the type, number and duration of unions, could enhance our understanding of the importance of intimate relationships for people's well-being. If well-being is related to living full time with a partner rather than to being married, people in alternative relationship arrangements, such as cohabitation or a close relationship with a person outside the household, should show levels of well-being comparable with those of married people. Furthermore, given the serious emotional consequences of losing one's partner (Balkwell, 1985), it is questionable whether these consequences can be completely counterbalanced by entering a new relationship. Therefore, remarried people could be less well off than people in their first marriage. Research among the divorced and widowed suggests that well-being increases with the time elapsed since the last dissolution (Ferreiro et al.,1986). It is not clear, however, to what extent the negative impact of losing one's partner increases with the number of union dissolutions the divorced and widowed have experienced. …

Social Assistance and Conjugal Union Dissolution in Canada: A Dynamic Analysis

"Using Statistics Canada's General Social Survey on Family and Friends, carried out in 1990, we piece together the matrimonial and conjugal life history of a large sample of Canadian men and women. We then estimate duration models (Cox's proportional hazard models) describing the evolutionary laws of marriages and unions, which depend on various economic or socio-demographic explanatory variables. The empirical modelling focuses primarily on estimating the impact of couples' earned incomes and of provincial welfare programs on the dissolution rate of first marriages and unions....We...find that welfare benefits do not have an impact on the hazard of union dissolution and that earned incomes have a positive effect on conjugal stability." (EXCERPT)

Negotiations in the Former Soviet Union: New Structure, New Dimensions

AbstractDespite a heritage of suspicion toward negotiation, the new states of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) have negotiated among themselves (and in Russia's case, within itself) to resolve the issues of the Soviet Union's dissolution and to create a new structure of relations and institutions for the future. Special situations have occurred in relations with the Baltic states, which are not members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and Chechnya, which is a restive part of Russia. Past and future issues need to be distinguished, a new structure for the CIS worked out, and new relations established with the outside world.

Matrimonio de indios y legislación canónica ante el descubrimiento de América

This article analyses marriage among the Indians of the tribes of America starting with a reading of the Itinary for parish priest of the Indians, by Bishop Alonso de la Pena Montenegro (Quito 1754). It considers marriage prior to the christianisation of America and the theological and juridical problems created by this situation which preocuppied Church authorities at the time. The possible existence of impediments, the incalculable cases of Pauline Privilege, and the ancestral customs, which included polygamy, frequent dissolution of unions, and marriage between close blood relatives, are examined through the work of the missionaries. Also the validity and legality of marriages where there was a possible defect of form and the problems caused by language difficulties form the basis of this investigation

Dissolution of Premarital Cohabitation in Canada

The rapid increase in the number of unmarried cohabiting couples, indicated by recent evidence, is crucial to our understanding of changing marriage patterns. The levels and patterns of entry into cohabitation have been well documented over the last two decades, but little is known about the outcomes of nonmarital cohabitation. In this study we examine two competing outcomes of cohabitation relationships: union separation and legalization of the union through marriage. Our results show that the hazard rate of union dissolution is affected particularly by gender, fertility status, partner's marital status, religion, age at start of cohabitation, year cohabitation commenced, and region.

Poverty and the Economic Transition in the Russian Federation

In what some describe as one of the great natural experiments of our time, the Russian Federation has introduced a series of sweeping economic reforms over a very short period of time, beginning in January 1992. These include the elimination of most food subsidies; the reduction of other food subsidies and subsidies for fuel and most other basic commodities; the use of freely fluctuating market prices; the privatization of selected state enterprises; the creation of conditions for the establishment of a private sector in many areas of economic activity; and the initiation of a process that will ultimately transfer much property and land into private ownership. The result is rapid economic and social change. Western observers agree that this transformation will produce significant dislocations and affect many people adversely. Most expect that the worst dislocations will be in the short term, with the transformation leading to substantial long-term benefits. The Russians involved in the design and implementation of this transition, as well as Russian politicians, have been and continue to be deeply concerned about the impacts of the reforms on poverty levels.

Migration and Union Dissolution among Puerto Rican Women

This study examines the relationship between migration and union dissolution among Puerto Ricans, a Latino subgroup characterized by recurrent migration between Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland. Based on pooled life-history data from comparable surveys undertaken in Puerto Rico and the United States, we find that: 1) Puerto Rican women who have lived on the U.S. mainland have markedly higher rates of union disruption than those with no U.S. experience; and 2) even net of a wide variety of possible explanatory factors, the relatively high rates of union instability among first and second generation U.S. residents and return migrants are strongly related to recent and lifetime migration experience. The results suggest that the weak social ties of migrants provide limited social support for their unions and few barriers to union disruption.

Religious Participation in Early Adulthood: Age and Family Life Cycle Effects on Church Membership

We attempt to integrate, elaborate, and test competing theories of why religious participation increases with age during young adulthood. We reconceptualize age and family formation as interacting causes of religious participation rather than competing explanations of it. We expand the concept offamily formation to include divorce, cohabitation, and dissolution of cohabitational relationships. We distinguish attitudes toward the family from family formation behavior. We analyze data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, which traces church membership to age 32. Our results show that the effect of children on church membership varies with the combination of the children's and parent's ages. We find separate effects of family formation behavior and attitudes toward the family. Cohabitation, divorce, and dissolution of cohabitational unions all affect membership probability, but these effects vary with age and are often differentfor men and women. n most religious traditions practiced in the United States, religious values and participation in religious organizations are deeply intertwined with values and attitudes that encourage marriage and parenthood. Most formal religious dogmas promote the establishment and maintenance of family relationships. Organized religions offer institutionalized moral support for love, intimacy, and childbearing in the context of religiously sanctioned marriage (D'Antonio 1983, 1985;