One current line of argument against the legalization of same-sex marriage, advocated primarily by the New Natural Lawyers, is that marriage is a pre-political institution that has, as an essential element, a bodily union requirement. They argue that same-sex couples cannot realize bodily union in their sexual activities and thus cannot meet the structural requirements of marriage. Accordin…
This study investigated differences in the trajectory of marital satisfaction in the first 7 years between couples in covenant versus standard marriages. The authors analyzed data on 707 Louisiana marriages from the Marriage Matters Panel Survey of Newlywed Couples, 1998 – 2004, using multivariate longitudinal growth modeling. When the sample was restricted to couples who remained married ove…
This study contributes to the emerging demographic literature on same-sex couples by comparing the level and correlates of union stability among 4 types of couples: (a) male same-sex cohabitation, (b) female same-sex cohabitation, (c) different-sex cohabitation, and (d) differentsex marriage. The author analyzed data from 2 British birth cohort studies: the National Child Development Study (N =…
The authors investigated how the reported happiness of married and cohabiting individuals varies cross-nationally with societal gender beliefs and religious context. They used the 2002 International Social Survey Programme data from 27 countries (N = 36, 889) and specified hierarchical linear models with macro – micro level interactions in order to examine how the social – institutional con…
Although attachment theory posits that the use of nonmaternal care undermines quality of mothers’ parenting, empirical evidence for this link is inconclusive. Using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N =1,233), the authors examined the associations between nonmaternal care characteristics and maternal sensiti…
This study provides evidence that newlywed pairs who have a shared and well-grounded understanding of their courtship are better able to establish unions that endure. Using a sample of 168 couples, the authors found that marriages were more likely to survive when courting partners (a) loved each other to a similar degree, (b) depicted the probability of marriage and changes in the likelihood of…
In this article, we address how first and second marriages are formed by asking whether SES has similar effects on first and second marriage entry. Like many studies of first marriage, we focus on gender, socioeconomic characteristics (education, income, and employment status), and gender differences in the effect of SES. To examine this question, we use the NLSY79 (n=12,231 never-married and 3…
Greater use of condoms within marriage would help limit the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Using data from the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (MDICP), the authors examined the influence that the fidelity norm and the traditional association between marriage and reproduction have on condom use with a spouse. The sample included 749 married couples. The authors used latent …
Numerous studies have shown that married women and men experience the lowest mortality. Legal marital status, however, does not necessarily reflect today’s social reality because individuals are classified as never married, widowed, or divorced even when they are living with a partner. Denmark is one of the forerunners of developments in coresidential partnerships and one of only a few countr…
This research examined the impact of networkparticipation, social support, and social control on the violence victimization of female marriage migrants by a spouse. Data were from a household survey of 492 cross-border and 379 local married couples in Hong Kong in 2007. The findings indicated that female marriage migrants were more vulnerable to spousal violence and more socially isolated, comp…
The authors integrate theoretical work on the performance of gender with a life course perspective to frame an analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 long-term married couples. The findings indicated that couples’ sexual experiences are characterized by change over time, yet that change is shaped by the intersection of gender and age. Midlife couples (ages 50 – 69) were distressed by chang…
In the United States, low marriage rates and high divorce rates among the poor have led policymakers to target this group for skillsand values-based interventions. The current research evaluated the assumptions underlying these interventions; specifically, the authors examined whether low-income respondents held less traditional values toward marriage, had unrealistic standards for marriage, an…
This study investigated how early, ‘‘on-time,’’ and late home leavers differed in their relations to parents in later life. A life course perspective suggested different pathways by which the time spent in the parental home may set the stage for intergenerational solidarity in aging families. Using fixed-effects models with data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe…
In this study, the authors used data from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey to investigate relationship quality among currently married and cohabiting individuals ages 18 to 55 (N =41,760) in 8 European countries (Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Russia, and The Netherlands). They expected to find fewer differences between cohabitation and marriage in coun…
Secondary respondent data are underutilized because researchers avoid using these data in the presence of substantial missing data. The authors reviewed, evaluated, and testedsolutions to this problem. Five strategies of dealing with missing partner data were reviewed: (a) complete case analysis, (b) inverse probability weighting, (c) correction with a Heckman selection model, (d) maximum likel…
Same-sex marriage has received much scholarly attention in the United States in the past decade. Yet we know little about how samesex couples experience marriage. In this article, I present findings from in-depth interviews with 32 legally married gay men in Iowa. I focus on their experiences with families of origin and investigate the legitimating potential of same-sex marriage. The men had h…
This study investigated religiousness and couple well-being as mediated by relational virtue and equality. Relational spiritual framework theory posits that religiousness is associated with couple well-being through relational virtues (e.g., forgiveness, commitment, and sacrifice). Theories of relational inequality postulate that religion decreases couple well-being and indirectly lessens coupl…
Family scholars have focused on the onset of sexual activity early in the life course, but little is known about the cessation of sexual activity in relationships in later life. We use event-history analysis techniques and logistic regression to identify the correlates of sexual inactivity among older married men and women. We analyze data for 1,502 married people from the National Social Life,…
The consequences of divorce are pronounced for parents of young children, and cohabitation dissolution is increasing in this population and has important implications. The mental health consequences of union dissolution were examined, by union type and parental gender, using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 1,998 for mothers and 1,764 for fathers). Overall, cohabitation and m…
The current study investigates associations among marital satisfaction, family emotional expressiveness, the home learning environment, and preschool-aged children’s emergent literacy skills among 385 Midwestern mothers and their children. Path analyses examined how marital satisfaction related to emotional expressiveness in the home and whether this path was associated with the home learning…
Domestic labor researchers have examined a multitude of duties disproportionately performed by women, yet the responsibility associated with navigating a couple’s fertility—fertility work—has been overlooked. Using data from the 2006 – 2010 National Survey of Family Growth (N=1,415), the author examined how racial and socioeconomic factors affect the division of contraceptive fertility …
Increased policy and academic attention has been placed on promoting retirement savings early in the life course. This study investigates the extent to which retirement savings behavior among young persons, a population for which retirement savings is important but typically low, differs by marital status. We draw national survey data on young adult households (ages 22 – 35; N = 3,894) from t…
This study examined the influence of the family on native Dutch attitudes toward having ethnic minority members as kin through marriage using multiactor data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (N = 1,652). Results from multilevel models showed that 28% of the variation in ethnic attitudes can be ascribed to the family. We investigated different pathways through which the family affects th…
Educational expansion has led to greater diversity in the social backgrounds of college students. We ask how schooling interacts with this diversity to influence marriage formation among men and women. Relying on data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,208), we use a propensity score approach to group men and women into social strata and multilevel event history models t…
The debate over whether same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into civil marriages continues in the United States. Forty-nine adolescents and emerging adults (ages 14 – 29) with lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents were interviewed for the current exploratory study, which examined how individuals perceived themselves and their families as being affected by marriage (in)equality, as well a…
An impressive body of research has examined the effect of marriage on desistance from a criminal career. Although extensive efforts have been made to control for potential confounders, almost no research has considered the role that genetic influences play in the relationship. In this study, the authors revisited the marriage – desistance connection by analyzing sibling data drawn from the Na…
This article addresses open questions about the nature and meaning of the positive association between marriage and well-being, namely, the extent to which it is causal, shared with cohabitation, and stable over time. We relied on data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 2,737) and a modeling approach that controls for fixed differences between individuals by relating union…
Despite widespread attention to population aging and contemporary increases in racial intermarriage, little is known regarding their joint implications for social support in middle and later life. Drawing on data from the 2007 General Social Survey conducted by Statistics Canada on intermarried and endogamously married adults age 45 and over (N =13,238), this study examined the effects of inter…
This study explored how health, wealth, and family ties shape older cohabitors’ chances of marrying or separating. Drawing on rational choice and exchange theories, the author argues these factors affect women and men differently because the rewards, alternatives, and barriers of later-life union formation differ by gender. The study used panel data from the 1998 – 2006 Health and Retiremen…
Recent efforts to promote marriage among the socioeconomically disadvantaged are based on the assumption that marriage is equally beneficial for persons with varying levels of socioeconomic status. Using 3 waves of data from a sample of married adults (the National Survey of Families and Households; N = 1,849), the authors evaluated whether the health benefits of marital happiness and the healt…
This study investigated the common assumption that measures of father involvement are invariant across child age, gender, and reporter. Measurement invariance was tested with 320 families who were interviewed at child ages 10, 12, and 14. Criterion validity was also examined, using observational, survey, and physiologic measures with factor rotation type considered. It was found that invariance…
Demand-withdraw communication is a set of conflict-related behaviors in which one partner blames or pressures while the other partner withdraws or avoids. The present study examined age-related changes in these behaviors longitudinally over the course of later life stages. One hundred twenty-seven middleaged and older long-term married couples were observed at 3 time points across 13 years as t…
Using data from a sample of 281 couples (the Flourishing Families data set), the authors tested a systemic theoretical model that examined the relationship among observed marital interaction, physical and mental health, and work satisfaction. The results showed that negative marital interaction was associated with significantly lower work satisfaction and poorer health for men. Higher negative …
This study examined the implications of gender attitudes and spouses’ divisions of household labor, time with children, and parental knowledge for their trajectories of love in a sample of 146 African American couples. Multilevel modeling in the context of an accelerated longitudinal design accommodated 3 annual waves of data. The results revealed that traditionality in husbands’ gender att…
This study is the first to explore the relationship between cohabitation and U.S. adult mortality using a nationally representative sample. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey-Longitudinal Mortality Follow-up files 1997 – 2004 (N = 193,851), the authors found that divorced, widowed, and never-married White men had higher mortality rates than cohabiting White men, and never-ma…
Cohabitation among adults over age 50 is rising rapidly, more than doubling from 1.2 million in 2000 to 2.75 million in 2010. A small literature provides a descriptive portrait of older cohabitors, but no study has investigated transitions into and out of cohabitation during later life. Drawing on demographic and life course perspectives, the authors developed a framework for conceptualizing la…
Although several factors condition mental health differences between married and nevermarried adults, given recent increases in marriage delay and permanent singlehood, one modifying factor—deviation from desired age at marriage—has yet to be examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N = 7, 277), the author tested whether deviation from desired age at marriag…
Using Family and Community Health Study data consisting of 168 unmarried, primarily African American couples, the current study sought to understand the dyadic interplay among school, work, and partner-specific marriage expectations in early adulthood. Drawing on the economic prospects, adult transitions, and work – family literatures, the authors hypothesized and found ample support that exp…
Are cohabiters different than married couples who cohabited before marriage? This study used the 2002 wave of the National Survey of Families and Households to determine how work behavior might differ for 4 relationship types: (a) cohabiters with uncertain marriage plans, (b) cohabiters with definite marriage plans, (c) premarital cohabiters who recently married, and (d) premarital cohabiters m…
The debate over whether same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into civil marriages continues in the United States. Forty-nine adolescents and emerging adults (ages 14 – 29) with lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents were interviewed for the current exploratory study, which examined how individuals perceived themselves and their families as being affected by marriage (in)equality, as well a…
In recent decades, arranged marriages have become less common in many parts of Asia. This paper explores people’s schemas surrounding just such a marital change in one Indian village using semi-structured interviews (N =30) and ethnographic fieldwork. Respondents categorize marriages into two main types: arranged marriages and elopements, also called love marriages. Arranged marriages were co…
A random multistate sample of married individuals (N=1,931) was used to explore whether more positive attitudes toward divorce and weaker commitment to marriage may contribute to the greater instability of remarriages than first marriages. Remarried adults, whether or not they brought children from a previous union into the remarriage, reported marital quality (happiness and conflict) equal to …
Cohabiters have been shown to invest less in their relationship than married couples. This study investigated the role of legal and interpersonal commitment by examining heterogeneity within marital and cohabiting unions. Going beyond the dichotomy of cohabitation versus marriage, different union types were distinguished by their level of legal and interpersonal commitment, followed by an ass…
Whereas most resident fathers are able to spend more time with their children on weekends than on weekdays, many fathers work on the weekends, spending less time with their children on these days. There are conflicting findings about whether fathers are able to make up for lost weekend time on weekdays. Using unique features of the United Kingdom’s National Survey of Time Use 2000, the author…
This study investigated the impact of union history and marital transitions on wealth inequality between older Black and White women (N = 7,026). Cohort data from the Health and Retirement Study show large and increasing Black – White differences in wealth. Marital and relationship histories are associated with the wealth accumulation process among older women. Women who married and stay mar…