婚前同居对初婚年龄的影响研究 ——基于Heckman二阶段模型的分析

在现代社会中,初婚年龄持续攀升,婚前同居现象越来越多地出现。那么婚前同居与初婚年龄之间有没有关系?本文基于婚前同居对离婚影响的选择假说与经历假说进一步探讨两种假说与初婚年龄之间的关系。选择假说认为同居者自身特征促使他们追求思想解放,消极地影响着婚姻稳定性,因此与其同居伴侣之间并不想建立一个长期的契约。由此推测这些积极影响同居的特征因素会给结婚带来消极影响,婚前同居就会推延初婚年龄;经历假说认为共同生活的经历将会改变同居者对婚姻的认识,他们不再强烈地致力于追求婚姻的身份。他们将会接受婚前同居这种暂时性的本质。很多夫妇认为同居提供了一个婚姻的替代品,结婚的欲望由此下降。因此这也将推延初婚年龄。除两个假说外,同居者想要通过同居搜集更多对方的信息,这种想要更多地了解对方的想法也将推延初婚年龄。在理论分析的基础上,本文基于2010年CFPS抽样调查数据,采用Heckman二阶段模型纠正婚前同居的自选择性带来的偏误并检验婚前同居推延初婚年龄的研究假设。研究结果发现婚前同居使女性与男性的初婚年龄分别推迟了0.415岁与0.868岁。在控制婚前同居的自选择性后,婚前同居对女性与男性初婚年龄的影响仍然很大且显著,初婚年龄分别推迟了0.431岁与0.890岁,证明婚前同居将会提高初婚年龄。这进一步明晰了婚前同居在我国家庭形成过程中的作用。婚前同居对初婚年龄的推延作用无疑为我国全面二孩政策下出生人口数量增长带来消极影响。     

How an earnings supplement can affect union formation among low-income single mothers

Using data from an experimental evaluation in two Canadian provinces, we found that offering an earnings supplement to single mothers in place of welfare altered rates of marriage and cohabitation, but that the direction of the effects varied by province. Our findings suggest that research on the relationship between women's economic well-being and marital decisions at the national level is likely to mask important variation at the local level. After eliminating several explanations for the opposite effects in the two provinces, we propose that local labor markets and local policy contexts are potentially important mediating characteristics of marriage and cohabitation.     

The relationship between work history and partnership formation in cohorts of British men born in 1958 and 1970

This study investigated the relationship between work history and partnership formation for British men. Two questions were asked: (i) Do instabilities in young men's careers lead to a higher probability of entering into cohabitation and, in turn, to a postponement of first marriage? (ii) Are there cohort differences in the effects of men's careers on their partnership decisions? The analyses were based on data from two birth-cohort studies for men born in 1958 and 1970. The results suggest that highly unstable occupational careers make it very likely that young men's first partnership is a cohabitation rather than a marriage. Further, having an unstable occupational career early in working life is a strong impediment to transforming cohabitation into marriage. Finally, there is no evidence of a weakening between cohorts of the effects of men's work careers on their partnership decisions.     

Marriage or dissolution? Union transitions among poor cohabiting women

The objective of this paper is to identify the incentives and barriers to marriage among cohabiting women, especially disadvantaged mothers who are targets of welfare reform. We use the newly released cohabitation data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979-2000), which tracks the partners of cohabiting women across survey waves. Our results support several conclusions. First, cohabiting unions are short-lived--about one-half end within one year, and over 90% end by the fifth year. Unlike most previous research, our results show that most cohabiting unions end by dissolution of the relationship rather than by marriage. Second, transitions to marriage are especially unlikely among poor women; less than one-third marry within five years. Cohabitation among poor women is more likely than that among nonpoor women to be a long-term alternative or substitute for traditional marriage. Third, our multinomial analysis of transitions from cohabitation into marriage or dissolution highlights the salience of economically disadvantaged family backgrounds, cohabitation and fertility histories, women's economic resources, and partner characteristics. These results are interpreted in a policy environment that increasingly views marriage as an economic panacea for low-income women and their children.     

Socio-economic resources and first-union formation in Finland, cohorts born 1969-81

Social scientists generally agree that better individual economic prospects enhance the probability of marriage for men, whereas there are conflicting views with regard to women. Moreover, it is argued that cohabitation does not require as strong an economic foundation as marriage. The aim of this study, which was based on Finnish register data, was to find out how the socio-economic resources of young adults affect first-union formation, and whether the effects vary by sex or union type. The results show that high education, labour-force participation, and high income seem to promote union formation. The findings are similar for women and men, which is plausible given the comparatively gender-egalitarian societal context. Similar factors encourage entry into both union types, although the union-promoting effects of university-level education and stable employment are stronger in the marriage models, suggesting that long-term prospects are more important when marriage is contemplated.     

How Similar Are Cohabitation and Marriage? Legal Approaches to Cohabitation across Western Europe

Although cohabitation and childbearing within cohabitation have increased in Europe over recent decades, the variation across Europe remains remarkably wide. Most studies on union formation have not explicitly addressed the role of state policies in the development of cohabitation or discussed how countries have responded to changes in union formation by passing legislation. Here we discuss historical and theoretical issues relevant to the relationship between state policies and union formation and describe policies relating to cohabitation and marriage in nine Western European countries. Drawing on secondary sources and legal documents, we examine the quantity of regulations that mention cohabitation and the approach to cohabitation in 19 policy dimensions. We then place the countries along a continuum, from those that have equalized cohabitation and marriage to those that only regulate marriage. As a whole, this overview raises questions about the changing institution of marriage, as well as the increasing institutionalization of cohabitation.     

Estimating a marriage matching model with spillover effects

We use marriage matching functions to study how marital patterns change when population supplies change. Specifically, we use a behavioral marriage matching function with spillover effects to rationalize marriage and cohabitation behavior in contemporary Canada. The model can estimate a couple's systematic gains to marriage and cohabitation relative to remaining single. These gains are invariant to changes in population supplies. Instead, changes in population supplies redistribute these gains between a couple. Although the model is behavioral, it is nonparametric. It can fit any observed cross-sectional marriage matching distribution. We use the estimated model to quantify the impacts of gender differences in mortality rates and the baby boom on observed marital behavior in Canada. The higher mortality rate of men makes men scarcer than women. We show that the scarceness of men modestly reduced the welfare of women and increased the welfare of men in the marriage market. On the other hand, the baby boom increased older men's net gains to entering the marriage market and lowered middle-aged women's net gains.     

Nonmarital cohabitation and fertility in the United States and Western Europe

The increasing popularity of nonmarital cohabitation and a decline in marriage rates in the United States and Western Europe has led to a growing research interest in cohabitation without marriage and its relationship to traditional marriage. This article examines the evidence on the prevalence of cohabitation and the characteristics of cohabitants, and focuses on the childbearing behavior of cohabiting couples who are not married. The evidence to date suggests that in Denmark and Sweden cohabitation is widespread, especially among young people, and childbearing within cohabitational unions is relatively common. In the rest of Western Europe and in the United States, cohabitation is less common and fertility is less frequent. Fertility will be affected to the extent that couples delay having children until they are married. Policy and law concerning cohabitants and their children are changing rapidly. Most of these changes have resulted in a blurring of the distinctions between married and unmarried couples and between legitimate and illegitimate children.     

Beyond single mothers: Cohabitation and marriage in the AFDC program

We investigate the extent and implications of cohabitation and marriage among U.S. welfare recipients. An analysis of four data sets (the Current Population Survey, the National Survey of Families and Households, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) shows significant numbers of cohabitors among recipients of AFDC. An even more surprising finding is the large number of married women on welfare. We also report the results of a telephone survey of state AFDC agencies conducted to determine state rules governing cohabitation and marriage. The survey results indicate that, in a number of respects, AFDC rules encourage cohabitation. Finally, we conduct an analysis of the impact of AFDC rules on cohabitation, marriage, and single motherhood and find weak evidence in support of incentives to cohabit.     

“His” and “Hers”: Meeting the Economic Bar to Marriage

Scholars have suggested that low-income parents avoid marriage because they have not met the so-called economic bar to marriage. The economic bar is multidimensional, referring to a bundle of financial achievements that determine whether couples feel ready to wed. Using the Building Strong Families data set of low-income parents (n = 4,444), we operationalized this qualitative concept into a seven-item index and examined whether couples who met the economic bar by achieving the majority of the items were more likely to marry than couples who did not. Meeting the bar was associated with a two-thirds increase in marriage likelihood. The bar was not positively associated with cohabitation, suggesting that it applies specifically to marriage. When we examined different definitions of the bar based on whether the mother, father, or both parents contributed items, all variants were associated with marriage, even if the bar was based on the mother’s economic accomplishments alone. When mothers contributed to the economic bar, they reported significantly higher relationship quality. Our results reinforce the importance of the multidimensional economic bar for marriage entry, highlighting the role of maternal economic contributions in low-income relationships.     

Subjective Well-being and Partnership Dynamics: Are Same-Sex Relationships Different?

We analyze Dutch panel data to investigate whether partnership has a causal effect on subjective well-being. As in previous studies, we find that, on average, being in a partnership improves well-being. Well-being gains of marriage are larger than those of cohabitation. The well-being effects of partnership formation and disruption are symmetric. We also find that marriage improves well-being for both younger and older cohorts, whereas cohabitation benefits only the younger cohort. Our main contribution to the literature is on well-being effects of same-sex partnerships. We find that these effects are homogeneous to sexual orientation. Gender differences exist in the well-being effects of same-sex partnerships: females are happier cohabiting, whereas marriage has a stronger well-being effect on males.     

Has the reciprocal relationship between employment and marriage changed for men? An analysis of the life histories of men born in The Netherlands between 1930 and 1970

The study presented here analyses the reciprocal relationship for men between employment career and union formation and examines whether this relationship changed across twentieth-century birth cohorts. Competing hypotheses about trends are described, using notions of role-specialization, spouse support, and uncertainty. The study is based on an investigation of the life histories of 2,795 men in the Netherlands who were born between the 1930s and the 1960s, and confirms earlier findings by showing that employment fosters marriage while marriage protects men from becoming unemployed. There is also a relationship between employment and cohabitation but it is weaker in both directions. However, the relationship between marriage or cohabitation and occupational mobility is less clear, suggesting that the economic benefits of marriage cannot be generalized to the occupational domain. Although it is commonly believed that the link for men between career and marriage has weakened over time, our comparison of birth cohorts shows that in fact this is not the case.     

Premarital cohabitation and subsequent marital

Married couples who began their relationship by cohabiting appear to face an increased risk of marital dissolution, which may be due to self-selection of more dissolution-prone individuals into cohabitation before marriage. This paper uses newly developed econometric methods to explicitly address the endogeneity of cohabitation before marriage in the hazard of marital disruption by allowing the unobserved heterogeneity components to be correlated across the decisions to cohabit and to end a marriage. These methods are applied to data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. We find significant heterogeneity in both cohabitation and marriage disruption, and discover evidence of self-selection into cohabitation.     

Effect of family structure on life satisfaction: australian evidence

How do family arrangements affect subjective well-being? We investigate this issue using data pooled from the IsssA and HILDA, both large, representative national samples of Australia (pooled n=38 447). Our regression analysis of cross-sectional and panel data examines how large are the differences in life satisfaction according to marital status and cohabitation. We find that women and men in formal marriages experience higher levels of life satisfaction than do people in other family arrangements. Moreover, both multiple tests in the cross-section, and tests controlling for prior happiness in the panel analysis, suggest that this is a causal relationship. Aggregating up the levels of life satisfaction generated by different marriage and cohabitation arrangements across a lifetime, suggests that a life-long marriage is the most satisfying. Early divorce followed by an enduring second marriage is little worse (because little time is spent outside the married state). But divorce without remarriage, or long lasting cohabitation without formal marriage, reduce the lifetime sum of subjective well-being by 4–12% for both women and men.     

Cohabitation History,Marriage, and Wealth Accumulation

This study extends research on the relationship between wealth accumulation and union experiences, such as marriage and cohabitation. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we explore the wealth trajectories of married individuals in light of their premarital cohabitation histories. Over time, marriage positively correlates with wealth accumulation. Most married persons with a premarital cohabitation history have wealth trajectories that are indistinguishable from those without cohabitation experience, with one exception: individuals who marry their one and only cohabiting partner experience a wealth premium that is twice as large as that for married individuals who never cohabited prior to marrying. Results remain robust over time despite cohabiters’ selection out of marriage, yet vary by race/ethnicity. We conclude that relationship history may shape long-term wealth accumulation, and contrary to existing literature, individuals who marry their only cohabiting partners experience a beneficial marital outcome. It is therefore important to understand the diversity of cohabitation experiences among the married.     

The influence of same-sex marriage on the understanding of same-sex relationships

This study examines the ways in which legally recognized same-sex marriage affects the understanding of same-sex romantic relationships for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) individuals. Participants (N = 288) responded to an open-ended Web-based survey asking them to describe how legally recognized same-sex marriage influenced their view of their own romantic relationship or romantic relationships in general. Results indicate that legally recognized same-sex marriage impacted participants' understanding of romantic relationships by making existing relationships seem more real and by serving as a tool through which participants realized their desires for ideal potential partner and relationship characteristics. The results suggest that legally recognized same-sex marriage is seen as both beneficial and challenging for samesex couples.     

Parenthood and Leaving Home in Young Adulthood

With increases in nonmarital fertility, the sequencing of transitions in early adulthood has become even more complex. Once the primary transition out of the parental home, marriage was first replaced by nonfamily living and cohabitation; more recently, many young adults have become parents before entering a coresidential union. Studies of leaving home, however, have not examined the role of early parenthood. Using the Young Adult Study of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (n = 4,674), we use logistic regression to analyze parenthood both as a correlate of leaving home and as a route from the home. We find that even in mid-adolescence, becoming a parent is linked with leaving home. Coming from a more affluent family is linked with leaving home via routes that do not involve children rather than those that do, and having a warm relationship with either a mother or a father retards leaving home, particularly to nonfamily living, but is not related to parental routes out of the home.     

The influence of parents’ marital quality on adult children’s attitudes toward marriage and its alternatives: Main and moderating effects

Drawing on a panel study of parents and children, we investigate linkages between parents' marital quality and adult children's attitudes toward a range of family issues, including premarital sex, cohabitation, lifelong singlehood, and divorce. We hypothesize that parents' marital quality will be negatively related to children's support for these behaviors in adulthood and that parents' marital quality will condition the intergenerational transmission of attitudes toward these issues. We find some evidence that parents' marital quality influences children's support for divorce and premarital sex. More important, our analyses show that parents' marital quality facilitates the intergenerational transmission of attitudes. Parents' attitudes toward premarital sex, cohabitation, and being single are more strongly linked to those same attitudes among their young adult children when parents' marital quality is high than when it is low.     

Marital status and mortality: The role of health

Prior literature has shown that married men live longer than unmarried men. Possible explanations are that marriage protects its incumbents or that healthier men select themselves into marriage. Protective effects, however, introduce the possibility of adverse selection: Those in poor health have an incentive to marry. In this paper we explore the role of health in explaining mortality and marriage patterns, and distinguish protective effects from two types of selection effects. We find adverse selection on the basis of health (unhealthy men tend to (re)marry sooner) and positive selection on the basis of unmeasured factors that both promote good health and encourage marriage.     

Marital dissolution among the 1958 British birth cohort: The role of cohabitation

This paper investigates the effect of previous cohabitation on marital stability among the 1958 British birth cohort. Prospective data from the National Child Development Study are used to investigate the way in which family background factors and early lifecourse experiences, including cohabitation, affect the risk of first marriage dissolution by age 33. Discrete time logistic regression hazards models are used to analyse the risk of separation in the first eight years of marriage. Many socio-economic and family background factors are found to act through more intermediate determinants, such as age at marriage and the timing of childbearing, to affect the risk of separation. Previous cohabitation with another partner and premarital cohabitation are both associated with higher rates of marital breakdown. The effect of premarital cohabitation is attenuated but remains significant once the characteristics of cohabitors are controlled, and cannot be explained by the longer time spent in a partnership.