Debt,Cohabitation, and Marriage in Young Adulthood

Despite growing evidence that debt influences pivotal life events in early and young adulthood, the role of debt in the familial lives of young adults has received relatively little attention. Using data from the NLSY 1997 cohort (N = 6,749) and a discrete-time competing risks hazard model framework, I test whether the transition to first union is influenced by a young adult’s credit card and education loan debt above and beyond traditional educational and labor market characteristics. I find that credit card debt is positively associated with cohabitation for men and women, and that women with education loan debt are more likely than women without such debt to delay marriage and transition into cohabitation. Single life may be difficult to afford, but marital life is unaffordable as well. Cohabitation presents an alternative to single life, but not necessarily a marital substitute for these young adults.     

Generational Differences in Cohabitation and Marriage in the US

We use data from pooled 2000 to 2004 current population surveys (CPSs) to examine generational differences in cohabitation and marriage among men and women ages 20–34 in the US. Consistent with our expectation and in line with assimilation theory, levels of cohabitation rise across succeeding generations. In contrast, generational differences in marriage follow a curvilinear pattern such that those in the second generation are least likely to be married, which supports some contemporary extensions of assimilation theory. These patterns persist across education groups, and tend to hold across racial and ethnic groups, too, although among women, the predicted percentages cohabiting across generations vary widely by race-ethnicity. This paper is an original work by Brown, Van Hook and Glick and is being submitted exclusively to PRPR for publication consideration. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, March 30–April 2, 2005, Philadelphia, PA.     

人口红利、财富积累与经济增长

文章从消费者行为出发,以生命周期假说为分析前提,研究消费者在老龄化的过程中如何积累财富,并对这些消费者行为加总进一步研究社会财富的积累,分析财富增加和劳动力数量下降这一特征事实下的经济增长路径。在理论研究和经验分析的基础上,作者认为判断人口老龄化是否对经济增长造成影响,不能仅从劳动力供给数量上分析,应综合考虑资本、劳动力等因素的变化。通过研究,本文得出的结论是人口老龄化未必使经济增长速度放缓。     

The Interrelations Between Cohabitation,Marriage and First Birth in Germany and Sweden

We study the interrelationships between union-formation forms and fertility in Swedish and West German female cohorts born in 1949–1971. We apply simultaneous hazard models, permitting the presence of correlated unobserved heterogeneity. This method allows us to control for country-specific composition of the population with respect to several socio-economic variables, as well as with respect to unobserved factors jointly affecting childbearing and union formation behavior. Our results confirm that partnership formation and the transition to parenthood are partially interchangeable. Net of those selection effects, we find that the impact of being in a union on first birth is higher in Sweden than in Germany, in particular for cohabitation.     

The Marriage Wealth Premium Revisited: Gender Disparities and Within-Individual Changes in Personal Wealth in Germany

This study examines the association between marriage and economic wealth of women and men. Going beyond previous research that focused on household wealth, I examine personal wealth, which allows identifying gender disparities in the association between marriage and wealth. Using unique data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (2002, 2007, and 2012), I apply random-effects and fixed-effects regression models to test my expectations. I find that both women and men experience substantial marriage wealth premiums not only in household wealth but also in personal wealth. However, I do not find consistent evidence for gender disparities in these general marriage premiums. Additional analyses indicate, however, that women’s marriage premiums are substantially lower than men’s premiums in older cohorts and when only nonhousing wealth is considered. Overall, this study provides new evidence that women and men gain unequally in their wealth attainment through marriage.     

Patterns of Entry into Cohabitation and Marriage Among Mainland Puerto Rican Women*

This paper adds to our limited knowledge of racial and ethnic variation in union formation by describing and analyzing the first unions of mainland Puerto Rican women. Retrospective history data show that Puerto Ricans have shared in the post-1970 shift toward cohabitation. Puerto Rican women, however, are much more likely to enter informal first unions than the general population, and have a low propensity to transform informal unions into legal marriages. The paper examines the influence of family background and current activities on union timing and type. The relationship between partner attributes and the choice between formal and informal coupling is also considered.     

我国求富与可持续发展的矛盾及其根源与对策

我国的求富与可持续发展的矛盾是由社会主义初级阶段的国情决定的,有它的根源。解决这一矛盾,实质就是要处理好二者的关系,走可持续发展的求富之路,这是中国人民实现富裕与持久繁荣富强的一条必由之路。     

Consanguinity and Other Marriage Market Effects of a Wealth Shock in Bangladesh

This paper uses a wealth shock from the construction of a flood protection embankment in rural Bangladesh coupled with data on the universe of all 52,000 marriage decisions between 1982 and 1996 to examine changes in marital prospects for households protected by the embankment relative to unprotected households living on the other side of the river. We use difference-in-difference specifications to document that brides from protected households commanded larger dowries, married wealthier households, and became less likely to marry biological relatives. Financial liquidity-constrained households appear to use within-family marriage (in which one can promise ex-post payments) as a form of credit to meet up-front dowry demands, but the resultant wealth shock for households protected by the embankment relaxed this need to marry consanguineously. Our results shed light on the socioeconomic roots of consanguinity, which carries health risks for offspring but can also carry substantial benefits for the families involved.     

婚前同居与初婚离婚风险——基于CFPS2010数据的分析

文章基于"中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)2010"中的成人问卷数据库,采用Cox比例风险回归模型分析了婚前同居对初婚离婚的影响.在控制住其它影响因素后,研究发现无论男女,婚前同居都将提高离婚风险,这一结果与欧美现有的实证研究结果是一致的.没有婚前同居行为的男性离婚的发生倍率是有过婚前同居行为的0.437倍,没有婚前同居行为的女性离婚的发生倍率是有过婚前同居行为的0.653倍.这主要是由婚前同居者的选择效应与较低的婚姻质量共同造成的.     

The Impact of Family Size on Wealth Accumulation in Rural Thailand

Abstract. We examine the effect of socio-economic covariates on infant mortality in China in the 1980s, particularly the role of previous birth interval and mother's education, using an event history approach with data from the 1988 Two per Thousand Fertility Survey. We use a Bayesian model averaging strategy that takes account of model uncertainty as well as parameter uncertainty. A standard stepwise logistic regression analysis finds no statistically significant relationship between the preceding birth interval and infant survival after controlling for socio-demographic factors, but this finding is reversed when the Bayesian model averaging approach is adopted. However, the method finds less support than a standard stepwise approach for the role of mother's education. We consider the model-fitting criterion of predictive power when applied to out-of-sample observations, and show that Bayesian model averaging outperforms the stepwise approach. We conclude that, even with large sample sizes, the interpretation of results can vary substantially according to model selection and fitting criteria.     

"搭伴养老"现象与老年人再婚难问题

“搭伴养老”是指老年男女双方不进行结婚登记而生活在一起,实现晚年相互照料的一种老年“再婚”生活方式(应属于同居的范畴) ,同时包含养老的内涵。近年来,这种现象在我国很多地方不断出现,引起了广泛的争议。本文就搭伴养老反映出的老年人再婚难的问题、老年人再婚需求、老年人再婚的特殊性以及社会帮助等方面展开分析和论述。1　搭伴养老现象反映出老年人再婚难的严重问题搭伴养老现象之所以引起关注是因为它得到了很多人的接受和认同。《承德晚报》2 0 0 2年2月4日有一篇报道,题为:“老年人再婚‘走婚式’受欢迎”。《羊城晚报》2 0 0 2…     

The Impact of Migration and Remittances on Wealth Accumulation and Distribution in Rural Thailand

This article studies the impact of internal migration and remittance flows on wealth accumulation and distribution in 51 rural villages in Nang Rong, Thailand. Using data from 5,449 households, the study constructs indices of household productive and consumer assets with principal component analysis. The changes in these indices from 1994 to 2000 are modeled as a function of households’ prior migration and remittance behavior with ordinary least squares, matching, and instrumental variable methods. The findings show that rich households lose productive assets with migration, potentially because of a reduction in the labor force available to maintain local economic activities, while poor households gain productive assets. Regardless of wealth status, households do not gain or lose consumer assets with migration or remittances. These results suggest an equalizing effect of migration and remittances on wealth distribution in rural Thailand.     

Extra-Marital Cohabitation and Fertility

In France, as in many other Western European countries, attitudes and behaviour regarding marriage have changed drastically over the past 20 years. One of the major changes has been the increasing propensity to begin one's matrimonial career outside marriage: two-thirds of first unions begun in 1983–85 were outside marriage. A special survey was carried out at the end of 1985 to collect detailed information on life-courses for a sample of 4,091 women and men aged between 21 and 44 years. In a previous paper, we focused on the characteristics and on the outcome of first unions, with no account of interactions with fertility, which will be the guideline of the present paper.     

Testing the Economic Independence Hypothesis: The Effect of an Exogenous Increase in Child Support on Subsequent Marriage and Cohabitation

We examine the effects of an increase in income on the cohabitation and marriage of single mothers. Using data from an experiment that resulted in randomly assigned differences in child support receipt for welfare-receiving single mothers, we find that exogenous income increases (as a result of receiving all child support that was paid) are associated with significantly lower cohabitation rates between mothers and men who are not the fathers of their child(ren). Overall, these results support the hypothesis that additional income increases disadvantaged women’s economic independence by reducing the need to be in the least stable type of partnerships. Our results also show the potential importance of distinguishing between biological and social fathers.     

Interrelated family-building behaviors: Cohabitation, marriage, and nonmarital conception

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 are used to estimate a series of models of entry into marriage, entry into cohabitation, and nonmarital pregnancy. Our models account explicitly for the endogeneity of one outcome as a predictor of another by taking into account both heterogeneity across individuals due to unmeasured factors that may affect all these outcomes and the correlation in the unmeasured factors across processes. We find that these heterogeneity components are strongly and positively related across the outcomes. Women who are more likely to cohabit, marry, or become pregnant while unmarried are also more likely to do each of the others. Although black and white women differ in the likelihood of these behaviors, the interrelations of the behaviors are quite similar across groups.