Religious homogamy and voluntary childlessness in Canada

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of religious affiliation, religious homogamy, religiosity, and religious marriage on voluntary and temporary childlessness and to compare childlessness patterns among Canadian-born and foreign-born women. Data were obtained from the 1984 Canadian Fertility Survey of 2863 women aged 18-49 years who were married to their first husband or living in consensual unions. The sample included 216 childless women, of whom 98 were voluntarily childless and 91 were temporarily childless. Analysis performed with probit maximum likelihood techniques and bivariate forms revealed that homogamous Catholics were less likely to remain temporarily childless but more likely to be voluntarily childless than non-Catholics. Multivariate analysis found that age, marriage age, education, and husband's income were statistically significantly related to voluntary childlessness. The likelihood of childlessness was also influenced by young age, later marriage, higher education, employment, women with husbands with lower income, and women who attend church services less frequently. Religious homogamous marriage was unrelated to childlessness. Frequent church attendance decreased the odds of deciding not to have children. Neither Catholic homogamy nor non-Catholic homogamy had an important effect after interaction terms for both religiosity and homogamy were included. Childlessness among foreign-born women was significantly more likely among those whose husbands had lower income, nonreligious women, and non-Catholic women who married heterogamously. Canadian women's childlessness was significantly related to education, husband's income, religiosity, and non-Catholic homogamy.     

Marital status and psychiatric disorders among blacks and whites.

This paper examines the association between marital status and psychiatric disorder for Blacks and explores the extent to which these patterns differ from those for Whites. Widowed and separated/divorced Black males and females have higher rates of disorder than the married; never-married Blacks do not have an elevated risk of psychiatric illness. The association between marital status and disorder for White males is similar and stronger than that observed for Blacks. For White women, the separated/divorced have a higher risk of disorder than the married, and unmarried White females have higher rates of the substance abuse disorders, but lower rates of the anxiety disorder than the married. Across all marital status groups, Black males and White males have higher rates of disorder (except for depression), than females. A complex pattern emerges when gender differences in the relative rates of disorder for unmarried Blacks compared to married Blacks are considered. Separated/divorced Black men, widowed Black women, and never-married Black men are worse off than their respective peers. Except for the separated/divorced, opposite patterns are evident for Whites. Directions for further research are outlined.     

HOMOGAMY AMONG DATING, COHABITING, AND MARRIED COUPLES

The winnowing hypothesis posits that transitions from dating to cohabiting to marital unions are marked by increasing selectivity in the mate selection or matching process. In this paper, we provide comparative estimates of educational, racial, and religious homogamy and heterogamy along a continuum of commitment: sexually intimate dating couples, cohabiting couples, and married couples. Log-linear models, fitted to cross-classified data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, provide only partial support for the winnowing hypothesis. On the one hand, homogamy with respect to race and religion increases slightly as relationships progress from dating to cohabitation to marriage. On the other hand, each relationship–dating, cohabiting, and married–is marked by substantial homogamy, at least for the traits considered here. And, in the absence of homogamy, each couple type reveals quite similar patterns of educational heterogamy or intermarriage, although upward mobility through partnering is less evident among cohabitors. Overall, however, the rather stringent sorting criteria that men and women use in selecting a marital partner, which manifests itself in marital homogamy, is also used in dating and cohabiting relationships.     

Till Porn Do Us Part? A Longitudinal Examination of Pornography Use and Divorce

As pornography use becomes more commonplace in the United States, and increasingly so among younger cohorts, a growing literature is considering its potential connection to key social and cultural institutions. The current study examined the relationship between pornography use and one such institution: marriage. We drew on three-wave longitudinal data from 2006 to 2014 General Social Survey panel studies to determine whether married Americans’ pornography use predicted their likelihood of divorce over time and under what social conditions. We employed a doubly robust strategy that combines entropy balancing with logistic regression models. We found that the probability of divorce roughly doubled for married Americans who began pornography use between survey waves (N = 2,120; odds ratio = 2.19), and that this relationship held for both women and men. Conversely, discontinuing pornography use between survey waves was associated with a lower probability of divorce, but only for women. Additional analyses also showed that the association between beginning pornography use and the probability of divorce was particularly strong among younger Americans, those who were less religious, and those who reported greater initial marital happiness. We conclude by discussing data limitations, considering potential intervening mechanisms and the possibility of reverse causation, and outlining implications for future research.     

Assortative Mating Among Dutch Married and Cohabiting Same‐Sex and Different‐Sex Couples

The authors compared male and female same‐sex and different‐sex couples in the Netherlands with respect to age and educational homogamy. Because many same‐sex couples in the Netherlands are married, differences between married and cohabiting couples were analyzed for all 3 groups. Analyses of data from the Dutch Labor Force Surveys 2001–2007 (N = 184,999 couples) showed that male same‐sex couples are less homogamous in terms of age and education than different‐sex couples. Female same‐sex couples are less homogamous in terms of age, but not in terms of education. No meaningful differences were found between married couples and cohabiting couples. Partnership status appeared less important than the sex composition of the couple. Given the relatively tolerant climate toward homosexuals in the Netherlands, the similarity of the results with those yielded by studies conducted in the United States may be considered striking.     

Selection,Alignment, and Their Interplay: Origins of Lifestyle Homogamy in Couple Relationships

The present study examines different processes leading to lifestyle homogamy in married and cohabiting couples using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (n = 3,490 couples). The analyses first suggest that alignment over time promotes homogamy of leisure‐related lifestyles, especially with respect to action‐oriented activities. However, intermediate stages in the life course (i.e., phases of active parenting and labor force participation) tend to inhibit alignment, whereas cues indicating a high‐quality match (e.g., educational homogamy and being in a long‐term or a marital relationship) promote alignment. Second, we find evidence for selection effects in that not only homogamy but also convergence of lifestyles over time may increase couples' resilience to relationship breakup.     

Impact of Race on the Implementation of Empirically Supported Treatments in Substance Abuse Treatment

The effort to address the gap between research and practice in substance abuse treatment has largely neglected the role of local resources and political trends. This study seeks to clarify the role of the local environment in implementing empirically supported treatments (ESTs). The study consisted of secondary data analysis of substance abuse treatment centers (N = 13,079) and U.S. Census data to determine the likelihood of using EST by substance abuse treatment centers in counties with 50% or more Black residents. Bivariate and multivariate models were employed. After controlling for various factors, results indicate that substance use disorder treatment agencies that accept federal funding are less likely to use ESTs if they are located in counties with predominantly (> 50%) Black residents. Implementation of ESTs could be influenced by community racial distribution (% Black), but environmental constraints and events might shift implementation patterns.     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Dynamics in Couples: A Longitudinal Dyadic Perspective

The question of how educational assortative mating may transform couples' lives and within‐family gender inequality has gained increasing attention. Using 25 waves (1979–2012) of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and longitudinal multilevel dyad models, this study investigated how educational assortative mating shapes income dynamics in couples during the marital life course. Couples were grouped into three categories—educational hypergamy (wives less educated than their husbands), homogamy, and hypogamy (wives more educated than their husbands). Results show that change in husbands' income with marital duration is similar across couples, whereas change in wives' income varies by educational assortative mating, with wives in educational hypogamy exhibiting more positive change in income during the marital life course. The finding that husbands' long‐term economic advancement is less affected than that of wives by educational assortative mating underscores the gender‐asymmetric nature of spousal influence in heterosexual marriages.     

Editor's Comments

There are two purposes of this marriage education marketing study: (1) to compare the self-reported intra- and interpersonal qualities of 121 married couples (n = 242 individuals) attending a marriage education program with 46 married couples (n = 92 individuals) who were contacted through marketing promotional materials to attend the program but did not participate and (2) to determine if intra- and/or interpersonal qualities would predict the likelihood of marriage education attendance versus nonattendance. Results showed that compared with program nonparticipants, program participants reported lower levels of self-esteem, marital communication quality, marital commitment, marital satisfaction, family strengths, less consensus and intimacy, less fulfillment of marriage expectations, and increased levels of marital conflict. Levels of religiosity and fusion were the same for participants and nonparticipants. Wald logistic regression analysis indicated communication was the only significant predictor of marriage education participation. Implications for marriage education programming and practitioners are outlined.     

Understanding the Decision to Marry Versus Cohabit: The Role of Interpersonal Dedication and Constraints and the Impact on Life Satisfaction

The current study explored men's and women's reasons for choosing to marry rather than to cohabit using a national data set (n = 786) of adults who were currently married or had been married previously. Using commitment theory participant's open-ended reasons for choosing to marry were coded into categories of either interpersonal dedication or constraint commitment. A variety of demographic, attitudinal, and relationship history variables were then used to predict commitment type. The influence of commitment type during the decision to marry on life satisfaction was also explored. Results indicate that current marital status (being married vs. being divorced or separated) and cohabiting before marriage were the strongest predictors of interpersonal dedication reasons for marriage for both men and women. Level of conventionality and parents' marital status also emerged as significant predictors of constraint commitment. Finally, marrying for reasons related to interpersonal dedication significantly predicted higher life satisfaction for men but not for women.     

Venting to Unify the Front: Parents’ Negative Relational Disclosures about Their Children as Mediators of Coparental Communication and Relational Quality

In families with children, presenting a unified front is important for healthy couple and family functioning, yet the behavioral mechanisms that explain how coparental communication strengthens the interparental relationship remain unclear. In this study, we examined how parents’ negative relational disclosures about their children to each other serve as mediators of coparental communication and relational quality in divorced (n = 65 dyads) and married couples (n = 173 dyads). Coparents’ reports of closeness and satisfaction in both couple types were predicted primarily by their reports of supportive and antagonistic coparental communication. The results also revealed significant indirect effects of supportive coparental communication on closeness through negative relational disclosures about young adult children for married mothers and divorced fathers. Antagonistic coparental communication positively predicted married coparents’ disclosures about their children, but not divorced coparents’ disclosures. The results extend theoretical models of coparenting and provide implications for coparenting education programs.     

The mental health of the never-married

Although the interaction between mental health and marital status has been the object of much social scientific research, little is known about the mental health of never-married people. This article reviews research relevant to mental health and marital status as it pertains to never-marrieds. Methodological problems and current gaps in such research are pointed out. The mental health of never-marrieds is examined from three popular models of mental health—the social protection, social reaction, and social selection models. Each model offers competing explanations for differences in rates between married and unmarried people and between unmarried men and women. Suggestions are offered for improvement in researching the mental health of this neglected group.     

The times they are a changin': marital status and health differentials from 1972 to 2003

Although the meanings and rates of being married, divorced, separated, never-married, and widowed have changed significantly over the past several decades, we know very little about historical trends in the relationship between marital status and health. Our analysis of pooled data from the National Health Interview Survey from 1972 to 2003 shows that the self-rated health of the never-married has improved over the past three decades. Moreover, the gap between the married and the never married has steadily converged over time for men but not for women. In contrast, the self-rated health of the widowed, divorced, and separated worsened over time relative to the married, and the adverse effects of marital dissolution have increased more for women than for men. Our findings highlight the importance of social change in shaping the impact of marital status on self-reported health and challenge long-held assumptions about gender, marital status, and health.     

FAMILY STRUCTURE TRANSITIONS AND CHILD ACHIEVEMENT

This article uses prospective data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to investigate how children in divorced and never-married-mother families vary in reading and math achievement after parental remarriage. These are compared to children who remain in never-married, divorced, and continuously married families. Results based on growth curve modeling indicate that children remaining in single-parent families resulting from divorce or nonmarital births have lower achievement scores than children from married families. Maternal education and income account for all of the adverse effects of family structure on reading achievement, while maternal education, income, and children's home environment can explain the negative relationship between single parenting and math scores. We conclude that parental remarriage may have more benefits for children than previous studies have suggested.     

Religion,Infidelity, and Divorce: Reexamining the Effect of Religious Behavior on Divorce Among Long-Married Couples

Previous scholarship linking marital infidelity and divorce has tended to have 2 limitations: focusing on young marriages and overlooking the influence of religiosity. Using data from the panel study of Marital Instability over the Life Course (N = 763), we address both of these limitations. Using structural equation modeling and proportional hazards modeling, we examine the effect of religiosity on marital infidelity and subsequent divorce among couples married for at least 12 years. Our analyses reveal that religiosity reduces the likelihood of marital infidelity among these couples. However the effect of religiosity on the likelihood of a subsequent divorce is more complicated: Religiosity appears to indirectly reduce the likelihood of a subsequent divorce by increasing levels of marital happiness. Surprisingly, no influence is found of marital infidelity on marital stability or divorce. Implications for scholars concerned with marital stability are discussed.     

Music's Dual Influence on Dyadic Behaviors

The current study tested a mechanism through which music serves as a model of intimate relationship behaviors for those from noncontinuously intact family structures. The current study theorized that music would both mediate and moderate the relationship between family structure and risky sexual behaviors. Participants included 357 emerging adults who came from married, divorced, reconstituted, and never-married households. Results of hierarchical regression analyses confirmed that sexual lyrical content serves as a moderator between parental marital status and sexual behaviors of participants from noncontinuously intact homes, supporting the notion that those from noncontinuously intact homes seek models of intimate relationship behaviors outside of their family unit. This was found especially for age at first date, number of dating partners, and number of sexual partners for those from reconstituted and never-married households. A Test of Joint Significance confirmed the mediational influence of music in that sexual lyrical content in music influenced the sexual attitudes of participants, which, in turn, influenced their sexual behaviors.     

Family Influence on Physical Health During the Middle Years: The Case of Onset of Hypertension

Using survival analysis for 367 married women and 340 married men, this article investigates (a) change in hazard rates and survival probabilities with age for the onset of hypertension and (b) the influences of stressful marital and parental relationships on the hazard rates and survival probabilities of hypertension. Hazard and survival plots show that the risk for hypertension increases during the middle years to maximum, then decreases with age for both men and women. Log‐logistic survival models demonstrate that although marital stress significantly increases the likelihood of earlier hypertension among these long‐time married men and women, parental stress increases the likelihood of earlier hypertension only for women. These models control for the effects of stressful work conditions, health behaviors, hostility, and education. Employing a longitudinal research design strengthens confidence in the findings. The findings demonstrate that stressful close relationships may be more important determinants of physical health than is generally assumed.     

Change and Consistency in the Relation of Marital Status to Personal Happiness

Abstract

Several studies conducted in the late 1980s suggested that the effect of marital status on personal happiness was declining, meaning that the “happiness gap” between married and never-married persons was diminishing. Speculations about the causes of this diminishing positive effect of marriage ranged from changing values to the increasing role overload of married women. But there was some evidence that the decline in the “happiness gap” had reversed by the end of the 1980s. This paper uses General Social Survey data from 1972 through 2002 to show that this decline did indeed reverse, such that in recent years the difference in the happiness of married and never-married persons is as great as it has been since the inception of the GSS. Although women who are employed and/or have children in the home are slightly less happy than others, the positive effect of marriage on the happiness of these women is as strong as it has ever been.     

新中国成立以来我国婚姻匹配模式的变迁

伴随着工业化和现代化的进程,我国婚配模式也经历了变迁。本文利用2006年中国综合社会调查数据,分析了在新中国成立以来婚配模式的变迁,检验了工业化理论对我国婚配模式演变的解释效力。研究发现,我国各时期的婚姻匹配模式主要表现为不同社会特征群体的同类婚;此外,各时期的异质性婚配现象呈现明显的对称性。不同社会特征婚姻匹配强度的变化趋势部分印证了工业化理论,自致性特征在婚姻匹配中的重要性不断上升,而先赋性因素的重要性则经历了一个先降后升的过程。对同类婚和异质婚具体形式的进一步分析发现,不同社会阶层的边界可渗透性在各时期存在明显差异,相应的同类婚和异质婚现象也呈现不同的特点。     

Marital Status and Other Correlates of Personal Bankruptcy, 1986–2004

ABSTRACT

Relying on National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) data, this retrospective cohort study found that 11.6% (n = 882) of the eligible study sample (N = 7,609) declared personal or nonbusiness, nonentrepreneurial between 1986 and 2004. These debtors had average annual incomes that were about 2.5 times official poverty thresholds. Those who were divorced in 2004 were most likely to have declared bankruptcy (16.4%), followed by separated (13.9%), married with spouses present (11.2%), and never–married (7.0%) persons. Specific correlates of bankruptcy varied by year. Marital status was associated with likelihood of declaring bankruptcy in only 6 of 14 survey years: Never-married persons at the time of declared bankruptcy were less likely than married persons to declare, whereas formerly married persons, whether divorced or separated, were more likely than married persons to do so. Formerly married persons who declared bankruptcy bounced back economically to a lesser degree than did married persons, even though their predeclared bankruptcy levels of economic well-being were roughly equivalent. Interaction effects showed that formerly married women were more likely to declare bankruptcy than their male counterparts.