Marriage Markets and Intermarriage: Exchange in First Marriages and Remarriages

Drawing on data from the American Community Survey, we compare patterns of assortative mating in first marriages, remarriages, and mixed-order marriages. We identify a number of ascribed and achieved characteristics that are viewed as resources available for exchange, both as complements and substitutes. We apply conditional logit models to show how patterns of assortative mating among never-married and previously married persons are subject to local marriage market opportunities and constraints. The results reveal that previously married individuals “cast a wider net”: spousal pairings are more heterogamous among remarriages than among first marriages. Marital heterogamy, however, is reflected in systematic evidence of trade-offs showing that marriage order (i.e., status of being never-married) is a valued trait for exchange. Never-married persons are better positioned than previously married persons to marry more attractive marital partners, variously measured (e.g., highly educated partners). Previously married persons—especially women—are disadvantaged in the marriage market, facing demographic shortages of potential partners to marry. Marriage market constraints take demographic expression in low remarriage rates and in heterogamous patterns of mate selection in which previously married partners often substitute other valued characteristics in marriage with never-married persons.     

Patterns and trends of educational mating in Korea

This study examines the patterns and trends in the association between wives' and husbands' educational attainment during 1950-79 in Korea. Log-linear analysis traces the educational mating of successive marriage cohorts using Korean censuses. The most prominent feature in educational mating in Korea over time has been a rapid increase in college homogamy during 1960-79, which has increased 3 times every decade since the 1950s. This increase reflects the increasing rigidity of the status order in Korea during the 1960s and 1970s. This result is consistent with the conflict perspective which argues that the dominant strata consolidates its class culture though homogamous marriages. From 1970 to 1979 hypergamy increased in Korea, sustaining the traditional marriage pattern while Korea underwent industrialization. Although Korean couples who married during the 1970-79 period have greater educational hypogamy, it is thought to be due to demographic changes in age heterogamous couples.     

Remarriage,Delayed Marriage,and Black/White Intermarriage, 1968–1995

How have changes in marriage order and marriage timing affected 1968–1995 trends in United States Black/White intermarriage? Researchers usually follow a one-sex perspective on the effects of timing and marriage order on marital selection, arguing that delayed marriages and remarriages will be more heterogamous than early or first marriages. This paper shows that a one-sex perspective is oversimplified and that assortative marriage with respect to race depends on the interaction of both husband’s and wife’s characteristics. Marriages that match with respect to age or marriage order tend to also match with respect to race. First marriages and remarriages for both partners are more likely to be same-race marriages. Marriages that are intermarriages with respect to marriage order are more likely to also be intermarriages with respect to race. Marriages that are usual age combinations (husband and wife similar in age or husband slightly older) are also usual race combinations (husband and wife same race). Marriages that are unusual age combinations are more likely to be racial intermarriages. This paper also shows that trends in remarriage patterns do not account for the increasing trend in racial intermarriage and that trends in marriage timing have actually slowed increases in racial intermarriage.     

Pathways to educational homogamy in marital and cohabiting unions

There is considerable disagreement about whether cohabitors are more or less likely to be educationally homogamous than married couples. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I reconcile many of the disparate findings of previous research by conducting a “stock and flow” analysis of assortative cohabitation and marriage. I find that cohabitors are less likely to be educationally homogamous than married couples overall, but these differences are not apparent when cohabiting and marital unions begin. Instead, the results suggest that differences in educational homogamy by union type are driven by selective exits from marriage and cohabitation rather than by differences in partner choice. Marriages that cross educational boundaries are particularly likely to end. The findings suggest that although cohabitors place greater emphasis on egalitarianism than married couples, this does not translate into greater educational homogamy. The findings are also consistent with a large body of research on cohabitation and divorce questioning the effectiveness of cohabitation as a trial marriage.     

A multivariate analysis of homogamy in Montevideo,Uruguay

This paper develops multivariate models to describe homogamy or, more generally, marriage preferences, for corresponding characteristics of brides and grooms. The purpose of these models is to obtain interpretable measures of the degree of homogamy (or marriage preference) on one dimension and to adjust these measures for homogamy on other dimensions. The models are applied to a sample of marriages in Montevideo, Uruguay, with pairs of corresponding variables for the brides and grooms. The analysis estimates the unadjusted and adjusted levels of homogamy on previous marital status, age, education, religion, and location. Homogamy on location, or propinquity, is the single most important variable. Previous marital status and age describe the readiness or eligibility to marry and are associated in their effect on homogamy. Education and religion describe vertical and horizontal differentiation of marriage partners, respectively. The multivariate analysis verifies that these dimensions are largely independent of each other.     

Remarriage in later life: older women's negotiation of power, resources and domestic labor

Using data from in-depth interviews with 24 community-dwelling women aged 52-90, this paper analyzes the remarriage experiences of older women in contrast to their first marital relationships. The women's accounts of their experiences in their first and later life marriages are examined in terms of the negotiation of power, resources, and domestic labor. While first marriages were frequently characterized by incompatibility, alcoholism, abuse, and infidelity, second marriages were viewed as the marriages the women wished they had had in the first place or as relationships that met their later life needs. The women's lived experiences are discussed in terms of the changing cultural norms pertaining to gender roles, marriage, and divorce.     

The effects of remarriage on women’s labor supply

Many studies have found that women decrease their labor supply upon marriage and increase their labor supply upon divorce. This paper examines whether that pattern varies depending on whether the marriage is a first or higher-order one using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for the years 1979 through 2001. The combination of a greater expected probability that a remarriage will end and the failure of household production to bring returns upon the end of a previous marriage may make women less likely to reduce their labor supply in second or higher marriages as compared to a first marriage. The results differ for the intensive and extensive margins of labor supply. With one exception, after controlling for background characteristics, the estimates imply that the probability of working is related to marriage in a similar manner regardless of whether the marriage is a first or a remarriage. In contrast, the estimates provide support for the possibility that decreases in hours of work upon marriage are smaller in second and higher marriages as compared to first marriages.     

From Privilege to Prevalence: Contextual Effects of Women’s Schooling on African Marital Timing

In Africa and elsewhere, educated women tend to marry later than their less-educated peers. Beyond being an attribute of individual women, education is also an aggregate phenomenon: the social meaning of a woman’s educational attainment depends on the educational attainments of her age-mates. Using data from 30 countries and 246 birth cohorts across sub-Saharan Africa, we investigate the impact of educational context (the percentage of women in a country cohort who ever attended school) on the relationship between a woman’s educational attainment and her marital timing. In contexts where access to education is prevalent, the marital timing of uneducated and highly educated women is more similar than in contexts where attending school is limited to a privileged minority. This across-country convergence is driven by uneducated women marrying later in high-education contexts, especially through lower rates of very early marriages. However, within countries over time, the marital ages of women from different educational groups tend to diverge as educational access expands. This within-country divergence is most often driven by later marriage among highly educated women, although divergence in some countries is driven by earlier marriage among women who never attended school.     

International Migration and Educational Assortative Mating in Mexico and the United States

This paper examines the relationship between migration and marriage by describing how the distributions of marital statuses and assortative mating patterns vary by individual and community experiences of migration. In Mexico, migrants and those living in areas with high levels of out-migration are more likely to be in heterogamous unions. This is because migration increases the relative attractiveness of single return migrants while disproportionately reducing the number of marriageable men in local marriage markets. In the United States, the odds of homogamy are lower for migrants compared with nonmigrants; however, they do not vary depending on the volume of migration in communities. Migrants are more likely than nonmigrants to “marry up” educationally because the relatively small size of this group compels them to expand their pool of potential spouses to include nonmigrants, who tend to be better educated than they are. Among migrants, the odds of marrying outside of one’s education group increase the most among the least educated. In Mexican communities with high rates of out-migration, the odds of marrying outside of one’s education group are highest among those with the highest level of education. These findings suggest that migration disrupts preferences and opportunities for homogamy by changing social arrangements and normative climates.     

Breaking the racial barriers: Variations in interracial marriage between 1980 and 1990

Using PUMS data from the 1980 and the 1990 U.S. Census, I apply log-linear models to examine interracial marriage among whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Rarely, but increasingly between 1980 and 1990, interracial marriage of whites occurs most frequently with Asian Americans, followed by Hispanics, and then by African Americans. Interracial marriage tends to be educationally homogamous and the odds of interracial marriage increase with couples ’ educational attainment. Among interracially married couples with different educational attainments, both men and women from lower status racial groups but with high education levels tend to marry spouses from a higher status racial group with low education levels     

What’s love got to do with it? Homogamy and dyadic approaches to understanding marital instability

What determines marital instability is an important area of research for demography, sociology and economics, with a host of public policy implications. This paper improves our understanding of the issue through the use of rich longitudinal data and the application of advanced research approaches for one of the first times anywhere, and certainly uniquely for Australian data. The combination of method and recent Australian data represents a significant advance in this research area. Using data from waves 1–7 of Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, 2,482 married couples—where both partners are respondents in the first wave—are traced over 6 years to identify factors associated with marital separation. The data are analysed dyadically; that is, the characteristics of both partners in each couple are considered in tandem. This allows assessment of whether marriages between partners with similar characteristics (homogamy) are more likely to last than are marriages between dissimilar partners, or whether particular characteristics of wives or husbands—independent of their partners’—are more strongly associated with marital stability. A Cox proportional hazards model with time-varying covariates is used to assess the association of characteristics with marital separation. Our most important contribution relates to the role of homogamy in marital stability or instability and in the context of spousal differences we find the following factors associated with higher risk of marital separation: age, education, preference for a child, and drinking and smoking behaviour. As well, there is a clear positive association between separation and: dissatisfaction with the relationship; husband’s unemployment and perceived financial stress; early age at marriage; separation of parents; second-plus marriage; resident children born before marriage; and low household income. The last of these findings should matter directly for public policy formulation.     

Marital dissolution,remarriage, and childbearing

Earlier models of fertility hypothesize that marital dissolution and remarriage influence subsequent childbearing. This issue is examined by comparing the fertility of those in disrupted marriages with that of those in stable marriages. The results indicate that, by transferring women into a nonmarried status, marital dissolution decreases childbearing. The data also suggest that discord reduces fertility even before separation occurs—separated women had reduced fertility during the two years just before separation. It was found that marital dissolution without remarriage operates to truncate childbearing, thus decreasing family size. Dissolution followed by remarriage, however, lengthens the childbearing span of whites and has no influence on average family size; remarrying white women are able to make up for the childbearing lost between marriages. For nonwhites, we found that dissolution and remarriage increase the average time to childbirth, but, even more importantly, these events greatly decrease the number of children born.     

中国离婚丧偶人口再婚差异性分析

根据对再婚率指标的考察,我国不同可再婚人口群体的再婚可能性存在一定差异性。总体而言,女性再婚可能性大于男性,低文化程度女性再婚可能高于高文化程度女性,高文化程度男性有相对较高的再婚可能。上述差异性可能与初婚市场上的婚姻挤压、再婚市场上的婚姻梯度以及高文化程度男性参与初婚市场上婚姻资源的分配有关。     

Entering first union: the choice between cohabitation and marriage among women in Italy and Spain

While in Spain and Italy cohabitation has not acquired the same role that it has had in Northern Europe, in both of these Mediterranean countries cohabitation is no longer a marginal phenomenon. Moreover, the nature of cohabiting couples is diverse. According to the most recent FFS data, first cohabitations constitute a temporary arrangement that usually ends in the formalization of the union (marriage), and within 5 years 28.9 % of first cohabitations in Spain and 51.7 % in Italy were transformed into marriages. Within a Western context of changes in union formation patterns, the study of the choice between marriage and cohabitation as first union is of great significance. Is it possible to identify a shared pattern of union formation in Mediterranean countries like Italy and Spain? The purpose of this paper is to examine the choice between cohabitation and marriage as first union (timing, incidence and determinants) using a comparative life course approach. For the analysis of the timing and prevalence, cumulative incidence curves are calculated by birth cohorts and regions; while two semiparametric competing-risks models are estimated for the determinants of first partnership formation (one for each country), considering birth cohort, parental separation, educational attainment, employment status, age at leaving the parental home and birth of a child (the last three time-varying) as independent variables.     

Prenatal Health,Educational Attainment,and Intergenerational Inequality: The Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 Study

In this article, we study the effects of prenatal health on educational attainment and on the reproduction of family background inequalities in education. Using Finnish birth cohort data, we analyze several maternal and fetal health variables, many of which have not been featured in the literature on long-term socioeconomic effects of health despite the effects of these variables on birth and short-term health outcomes. We find strong negative effects of mother’s prenatal smoking on educational attainment, which are stronger if the mother smoked heavily but are not significant if she quit during the first trimester. Anemia during pregnancy is also associated with lower levels of attained education. Other indicators of prenatal health (pre-pregnancy obesity, mother’s antenatal depressed mood, hypertension and preeclampsia, early prenatal care visits, premature birth, and small size for gestational age) do not predict educational attainment. Our measures explain little of the educational inequalities by parents’ class or education. However, smoking explains 12%—and all health variables together, 19%—of the lower educational attainment of children born to unmarried mothers. Our findings point to the usefulness of proximate health measures in addition to general ones. They also point to the potentially important role played by early health in intergenerational processes.     

A dynamic model of the reproductive process

Summary A dynamic deterministic model of the reproductive process is presented. The model describes and analyses the effect of intermediate fertility variables on fertility. The intermediate fertility variables which are the inputs to the model, include the duration of post-partum amenorrhea, fecundability, incidence of spontaneous and induced abortion, contraceptive use and effectiveness, the distribution of age at first marriage and the age specific risks of marital disruption and remarriage. To test the validity of this model, it is fitted to data obtained from reproductive histories of 512 marriages occurring during the first half of the eighteenth century in Canada.     

夫妻教育匹配对男性平等分担家务的影响

利用2000年和2010年中国妇女社会地位调查数据,考察了21世纪最初十年间中国婚姻家庭的家务分工特征及其变化,着重检验了夫妻教育匹配对家务分工平等化的影响.研究发现,夫妻平等分担家务的现象近年来呈缓慢的上升趋势,2010年全国接近两成的已婚夫妇相对平等地分担家务.夫高妻低的教育匹配模式不利于推动家务分工平等化以及改变"女主内"的分工模式;与之相对,夫妻教育相同和夫低妻高的教育匹配模式在不同程度上推动着男性平等分担家务.文章认为,夫妻平等分担家务代表了现代社会经济和性别平等文化背景下家务分工演变的方向.实现这一转变,女性自身教育水平的相对提高以及教育匹配现象的演化扮演着极为重要的角色;而营造良好的社会舆论环境与完善社会服务体系,则是家务分工平等化的重要社会保障.     

Child gender and the transition to marriage

We estimate the effect of a child's gender on the mother's probability of marriage or remarriage using data from the PSID Marital History and Childbirth and Adoption History Files. We find that the birth of a son speeds the transition into marriage when the child is born before the mother's first marriage. A competing-risks analysis shows that the positive effect of a son is stronger for marriages to the child's biological father than for other marriages. We find no significant effect of child gender on the mother's remarriage probabilities when the children are born within a previous marriage. These results are consistent with a marital-search model in which sons, more than daughters, increase the value of marriage relative to single parenthood.     

The influence of parents’ marital dissolutions on children’s attitudes toward family formation

We investigate the influence of parents’ marital dissolutions on their children’s attitudes toward several dimensions of family formation. Hypotheses focus on the role of parents’ attitudes as a mechanism linking parents’ behavior to their children’s attitudes. We test these hypotheses using intergenerational panel data that include measures of parents’ attitudes taken directly from parents and measures of children’s attitudes taken directly from children. Results demonstrate strong effects of parental divorce, remarriage, and widowhood on children’s attitudes toward premarital sex, cohabitation, marriage. childbearing, and divorce. The results also show that parents’ own attitudes link their behavior to their children’s attitudes, although substantial effects of parental behavior remain after controlling for parents’ attitudes.