The declining earnings gap between young women and men in the United States, 1979–2018

We examine the dynamics of the gender earnings gap over the 1979 to 2018 period among full-time workers aged 25–29, focusing on the role of marital status and the presence of children. Using data from multiple years of the Current Population Survey, we find that the earnings gap declined among all groups of men and women, and by 2018 there was earnings parity among the those who were not married and without children. The share of people in this group also grew over the period, and comprised a majority of both men and women by 2018. We also find that while marriage was associated with lower earnings among women in 1979, by 2018 it was associated with higher earnings, suggesting greater positive selection of women with high earnings potential into marriage. The positive association between marriage and earnings among men remained stable. While we found a persistent earnings penalty for having children among women over the period, we found an emerging dampening effect of having children over time among men, which suggests that greater participation in childcare among men has led to lower earnings than in the past (i.e., a causal connection) and/or an emerging selection effect of young men more interested in childrearing over time, perhaps reflecting a cultural shift.     

The relationship between societal change and rising support for gender egalitarianism among men and women: Results from counterfactual analyses in the Netherlands, 1979–2012

This study examines the relationship between important social, cultural, economic, and demographic changes and the rise of support for gender egalitarianism within the Dutch population between 1979 and 2012. Cohort replacement, educational expansion, secularization, and the feminization of the labor force are important processes that have taken place in western societies in ways that may have fostered support for gender egalitarianism. Using unique data from 16 repeated cross-sectional surveys in the Netherlands, we estimate age-period-cohort regression models, and the outcomes are subsequently applied in counterfactual simulation designs. Our results show that the social, cultural, economic, and demographic changes explain only a small part of the modest rise in support for gender egalitarianism for men, while they provide a much better explanation of the stronger rise among women. Especially the replacement of older female cohorts by younger ones seems to have propelled support for gender egalitarianism among women throughout the years.     

Partisan strength,political trust and generalized trust in the United States: An analysis of the General Social Survey, 1972–2014

The literature on political parties suggests that strong partisan identities are associated with citizens’ effective interaction with the political system, and with higher levels of political trust. Traditionally, party identity therefore is seen as a mechanism that allows for political integration. Simultaneously, however, political parties have gained recent attention for their role in promoting societal polarization by reinforcing competing and even antagonistic group identities. This article uses General Social Survey data from 1972 – 2014 to investigate the relationship between partisan strength and both political and generalized trust. The findings show that increases in partisan strength are positively related to political trust, but negatively related to generalized trust. This suggests that while partisan strength is indeed an important linkage mechanism for the political system, it is also associated with a tendency toward social polarization, and this corrosive effect thus far has not gained sufficient attention in literature on party identity.     

Ethnic intermarriage in longitudinal perspective: Testing structural and cultural explanations in the United States, 1880–2011

Focusing on macro-level processes, this article combines Decennial Census and Current Population Survey data to simultaneously test longitudinal and cross-sectional effects on ethnic intermarriage using structural and cultural explanations. Covering a 130 year period, the results of our multilevel analysis for 140 national-origin groups indicate that structural characteristics explain why some origin groups become more “open” over time while others remain relatively “closed”. Ethnic intermarriage is more likely to increase over time when the relative size of an immigrant group decreases, sex ratios grow more imbalanced, the origin group grows more diverse, the size of the third generation increases and social structural consolidation decreases. Cultural explanations also play a role suggesting that an origin group’s exogamous behavior in the past exerts long-term effects and exogamous practices increase over time when the prevalence of early marriage customs declines. For some of the discussed determinants of intermarriage, longitudinal and cross-sectional effects differ calling for a more careful theorizing and testing in terms of the level of analysis (e.g., longitudinal vs. cross-sectional).