Unsanctioned births in China

This study hypothesizes that "unsanctioned" births (beyond the limit authorized by the government) in China are more likely among couples who have strong traditional fertility norms and less likely among couples who adopt new family planning norms. The theoretical framework is based on cultural conflict theory as developed by Sellin. Data are obtained from 6654 ever married women aged under 49 years from the 1987 In-Depth Fertility Survey for Guangdong province. Over 30% of the sample were married before 20 years of age. 20% had 1 child, 26.7% had 2 children, about 23% had 3 children, 13.9% had 4 children, and under 10% had 5 or more children. The average number of living children was 2.5. Findings reveal that socioeconomic status was significantly related to unsanctioned births; they were more common in less developed areas and among women of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Persons living in areas with a high monetary contribution per person in family planning efforts at the county level were less likely to have unsanctioned births. Women who lived in urban areas, worked in state enterprises, and had parents with high educational status were less likely to have unsanctioned births. They were more likely among women who married at an early age, lived with parents after the marriage, had female living children, and had failed pregnancies. They were also more likely among women who had arranged marriages, a traditional desire for large family sizes, an early marriage ideal, and a preference for sons. Knowledge of family planning and greater use of abortion were related to a lower incidence of unsanctioned births. Women who talked with their husbands about their family size desires were less likely to have unsanctioned births. Parental educational attainment only had an influence among rural women. Variables impacted on fertility differently in urban and rural areas.     

Son preference and reproductive behaviour in rural Punjab

This study examines the impact of son preference on desired family size and contraceptive usage among a rural population in Punjab, India. Data are obtained from a sample survey conducted for the Center for Research in Rural and Industrial Development in 1989-90 in 7 rural districts of Punjab. The sample includes 450 currently married women aged 15-44 years. Analysis pertains to mean desired family size, the percentage not desiring additional children, the percentage desiring additional sons and daughters, and current use of contraception by sex, birth order, and number of living children. The estimation of the extent to which contraception would increase and desired family size would decline is based on methods developed by Arnold (1985) that assume no sex preference at any parity. Findings indicate a strong son preference. At every parity, women with sons only desired fewer children and were more likely to use contraception. Among women who desired more children, there was no indication that women with sons only desired a balanced sex composition. None desired a second daughter, and many desired a second son. As the number of living sons increased, so did contraceptive use. Contraception was 20% among couples with no son, 50% among those with one living son, and 81% among those with two living sons. Sterilization acceptors had an average of 2.07 living sons. At parity 2, two times as many couples had boys only compared to girls only. At parity 3, there were 7 times more families with boys only than families with girls only. If sex preferences were completely eliminated in the Punjab, there would be a 9% decline in desired family size from 3.05 children to 2.77 children. Contraceptive use would increase by 14 percentage points from 58% to 72%. The cultural practices of the Jats ethnic group place girls in the position of being an economic liability.     

The Social Context of Marital Happiness in Urban Indian Couples: Interplay of Intimacy and Conflict

This research examines the happiness of 182 married, urban Hindu husbands and wives. Prior research emphasizes that the processes mediating well-being diverge across cultures with personal desires not impacting the happiness of non-Western couples. However, with globalization as self needs become important, barometers of happiness such as intimacy and conflict in a relationship assume a critical role in the quality and longevity of marriage, even for non-Western marriages in a contemporary India. Participants were 91 Indian couples, married an average of 11 years, from three socioeconomic classes, three family structures, and arranged and love marriages. Results reveal that happy couples, compared with unhappy couples, reported agreement, empathy, validation, support, and fulfilled expectations. Couples' experience and expression of intimacy, affected by social context, also predicted enhanced levels of happiness in marriage while conflict had a negative effect on marital happiness. This research suggests how personal desires may be transforming cultural practices.     

Tradition and Change in Vietnamese Family Structure in the Red River Delta

One of the key features of Vietnamese family organization is patrilocality—the preference of married couples to coreside with the husband's parents. With data drawn from a retrospective survey of persons in 1,855 households in the largest province in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam, we found that more than 75% of married respondents reported having lived with the grooms' family after marriage. The proportion of newly married couples that follow the patrilocal custom appears to have increased in recent decades, although the average duration of coresidence has declined. Some aspects of modernization, especially nonagricultural occupations and later age at marriage, contribute to a lower incidence of intergenerational coresidence, but the underlying cultural preference to live with the grooms' parents immediately after marriage appears to have become stronger in Vietnam. In contrast to some features of traditional family life that conflict with modernity, intergenerational coresidence can be quite functional in modernizing societies.     

Families in the future: the pursuit of personal autonomy

There have been substantial changes in the demography of the family since the early 1970s in Australia. Age at 1st marriage has risen substantially. In 1986, 6.1% of heterosexual couples in Australia were living together. In 1 in 3 marriages today, 1 or both partners have been married before. The percentage of marriages ending in divorce based on annual data increased from 14% in 1971 to 35% in 1986. The birth rate has declined substantially since 1971. In 1986,, 77% of all households were family households, 4% were group households, and 19% were 1-person households. Over 1 in 3 Australian children being born today will spend some time in a 1-parent family before they reach majority. The important measure, however, may not be family structure but the extent of support, both economic and emotional, that the child receives from his or her parents. Similar arguments may be applied to the aged. A 1982 survey showed that among persons aged 15-64 years who had a parent living elsewhere, over 50% had contact with that parent at least once a week. The same survey showed that among aged people requiring help, they were 5 times more likely to receive that help from a family member than from a government agency or from a voluntary agency. A focus on how families function draws attention to the changes in the lives of married women. Labor force participation rates for married women have been steadily increasing for over 50 years. Even in couple families with a child under 5 years old, 40% of the women were in the labor force in 1986. The family changes described above can all be interpreted in terms of the movement to personal autonomy which has characterized the last 20 years. This is especially the case with the increase in age at marriage, the decline of teenage pregnancy, and the rise in the divorce rate. The trend for young couples to live together rather than marry can be seen as an experiment in the pursuit of personal autonomy. The author hypothesizes that people choosing to live together before marriage are seeking personal autonomy, and it is the conflict between personal autonomy and family life that leads ultimately to their higher break-up rates.     

Conflict Patterns and Family of Origin Conflict in Newly Initiated Remarriages

ABSTRACT

The poor marriage material hypothesis explains the high divorce rate in remarriages as a function of the qualities of people who have previously been divorced. This study sought to test whether conflict in the family of origin and in the present marriage could substantiate the poor marriage material hypothesis by discriminating between couples in their first marriage versus those in a marriage with a history of divorce. A sample of 66 newlywed married couples, half in first marriages and half in remarriages, were recruited through marriage licenses and student referrals. Family of origin conflict discriminated between first and remarried couples. Namely, wives' exposure to interparental conflict significantly increased the odds that they were presently married to a husband who had previously been divorced. Differences between first and remarried couples' own conflict patterns were largely unremarkable with the exception of remarried couples seeing their partners as being more compliant and unassertive relative to those in first marriages.     

Women's family power and gender preference in Minya,Egypt

Structural and ideational theories are adapted to explore the influence of women's resources and ideational exposures on their family power and gender preferences in Minya, Egypt. Data from a household survey of 2,226 married women aged 15–54 years show that residence with marital kin decreases women's family power. Women in endogamous marriages have greater family power than women in nonendogamous marriages but still tend to prefer sons. Educated women report weaker son preference and greater influence in decisions but still tend to prefer sons. The positive association of women's education, paid work, and urban residence with a variable measuring girl or equal preference and family power suggests that selected resources and ideational exposures may improve girls’ well‐being in Minya.     

Individualized Marriage and the Integration of Resources

In individualized marriages, spouses maintain independence in their relationship. In individualized marriages, do married couples manage their money in pooled accounts or do they keep separate accounts? We answer this question with the 2002 International Social Survey Programme (N = 18,587;31 country contexts) and examine how variation in the individualization of marriage is related to variation in resource integration within marriage. We make two contributions. First, we found that individualization matters. When couples understood and practiced individualized marriage, they were more likely to keep their money separate. The presence of individualized approaches to marriage and individualized alternatives to marriage within a country were also related to a higher likelihood of couples keeping money separate. Second, we found that integrating resources remained a constitutive part of marriage. Despite trends toward individualization and growing alternatives to marriage, most married couples continued to pool their money.     

The Influence of Parental Identification on Attitudes in Same-Sex Families

ABSTRACT

Without the ability to be legally married in most U.S. states until 2015, same-sex couples did not have the rights and privileges of married or once-married couples. Even with the changing legality and increasing social acceptance of same-sex marriage, the relationship between nonbirth parents and children in same-sex parented families is often not recognized as a legitimate child-parent bond. The focus of this article is to investigate how attitudes related to social networks and the language used to identify parental figures likely contribute to the binary gender-role structure of the family. Using data from a self-administered survey, I examine whether nonbirth and birth parents hold distinct attitudes about social concepts that are relevant to their lives.     

Communique on the one-in-one thousand sample survey of birthrate of China's population

To analyze the history of the marriage and birth of Chinese women and to inspect the results of family planning work, to do well the jobs of demographic forecasting and formulating demographic plans, to provide a reliable basis for strengthening the scientific management of family planning work, the state Family Planning Commission organized and carried out a nationwide 1-person-in-1-thousand survey of birthrates in 28 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. The following are survey results: 1) 24.77% of the total survey population were women between 15 and 49 years of age; 2) among the women of childbearing age, 31.46% were unmarried, 64.53% were in 1st marriages, 2.89% were remarried; .19% were divorced but not remarried, and .94% were widows; 3) the average age of first marriage was 18.4 in the 1940s, 19 in the 1950s, 19.8 in the 1960s, 21.6 in the 1970s, and 23 in the late 1970s; and 4) the average number of births was 5.44 in the 1940s, 5.87 in the 1950s, 5.8 in the 1960s, and 4.01 in the 1970s. The survey reveals that education level and occupation have a strong relation to childbearing among Chinese women. The survey found that China and 170 million married childbearing aged women and that 118 million or 69.46% used birth control measures. 33 million couples had 1 child only, among them 42.3% has officially committed themselves to maintaining a 1 child family. The data reveal that major achievements in family planning work have been obtained, but the mission ahead is still arduous.     

Cohort Differences in Joint Retirement: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

The dramatic rise and sustained participation of recent cohorts of women in the labor force has coincided with their increased attachment to the labor market. In this paper we use twelve waves of the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2014) and investigate how married couples belonging to more recent birth cohorts compare with their predecessors in terms of coordinating their retirement decisions. Using a multinomial logit model we estimate the labor force dynamics of dual-earner married couples and find that couples with wives belonging to more recent birth cohorts are less likely to jointly exit the labor force. Further, this declining cohort trend in joint retirement can only partially be explained by commonly observed socio-economic, employment, and health related factors that affect retirement decisions, suggesting an important role for cohort changes in preferences and social norms such as preference for work and attitudes toward gender roles.     

Nonstandard Work Schedules and Marital Instability

Based on subsample of 3,476 married couples drawn from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Household, this study examines the extent to which working evening, night, or rotating schedules and weekends affects the likelihood of marriages ending in separation or divorce within approximately 5 years. Logistic regression analysis revealed that this relationship depends on the presence of children and is specific to the type of nonstandard schedule, the gender of the spouse, and the duration of marriage. Among men with children, married less than 5 years at Wave 1, working fixed nights made separation or divorce some six times more likely relative to working days. Among women with children, married more than 5 years at Wave 1, working fixed nights increased the odds by three times, and might have had an effect during the earlier years of marriage as well (although not statistically significant). These findings are evident when controlling for the number of hours worked as well as for demographic variables, and when considering, in addition, the husband's and wife's gender ideologies and the extent to which couples spent time alone together. The question of whether spouses in troubled marriages are more likely to move into night or rotating shifts was explored, but this did not seem to be the case.     

Household Headship Among Married Women: The Roles of Economic Power, Education, and Convention

Household headship historically has been equated with being the main economic provider of the household, a position usually occupied by men. This paper uses a change in the United States Census definition of household headship to examine whether headship for married women is associated with being the primary breadwinner in a marriage versus other non-economic explanations. According to microdata from the 1990 United States Census, women who are the main income providers in a marriage are much more likely to be household heads than women in co-provider marriages. There also is support for an egalitarian ideology explanation; that is, when both spouses are highly educated, the wife is more likely than the husband to be household head net of her relative economic independence in that marriage. Yet the force of convention remains strong given the low prevalence of headship among married women. The new census definition was meant partly to reflect the changing economic status of women. However, the reality is that conventional gender behaviors persist in household headship.     

Marital Dissolution Among Interracial Couples

Increases in interracial marriage have been interpreted as reflecting reduced social distance among racial and ethnic groups, but little is known about the stability of interracial marriages. Using six panels of Survey of Income and Program Participation (N = 23,139 married couples), we found that interracial marriages are less stable than endogamous marriages, but these findings did not hold up consistently. After controlling for couple characteristics, the risk of divorce or separation among interracial couples was similar to the more‐divorce‐prone origin group. Although marital dissolution was found to be strongly associated with race or ethnicity, the results failed to provide evidence that interracial marriage per se is associated with an elevated risk of marital dissolution.     

Residential Differences in Family Formation: The Significance of Cohabitation*

Abstract We update and extend prior research on residential differences in women's family formation experiences using data from the 1995 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth. Residential differences in the timing of family formation behaviors are examined, including first birth, first cohabitation, and first marriage. Our study emphasizes the significance of cohabitation, estimating the effect of geographic residence on type of union formation (i.e., cohabitation versus marriage) and relationship context of first birth (i.e., cohabiting, married, or single). We find that (1) the timing of family formation behaviors, including marriage and childbearing, differs by residence; (2) nonmetro women are more likely to enter marriage and marry at younger ages than their metro counterparts; and (3) when marriage and cohabitation are presented as competing risks, nonmetro women are more likely to marry than cohabit both as a first union and a first birth context.     

The case for (promoting) marriage: The devil is in the details

This article considers the quality of the evidence that marriage confers unique benefits, and that, as such, social policies should be enacted to encourage couples, particularly those with few economic resources, to get married and stay together. Public concern about the future of marriage in the United States, we show, is rooted in demographic changes that reflect not so much a turning away from marriage, but an increasing openness to postponing marriage, living together out of wedlock, or divorcing. We examine why people who are motivated to marry hold back from doing so when they see the warning signs of future problems, and what happens when they marry despite them. We argue that marriages are fashioned in the images of the partners and are shaped by the opportunities and constraints of the ecological settings in which they are situated. As such, the promotion of family health and stability will require an approach that attends to couples' psychological, social, and economic needs.     

Meanings of Marriage to Young People in Vietnam

Vietnam’s deepening sociocultural exchanges with foreign countries over recent decades have influenced the thoughts, lifestyles, and marital expectations of young people, who grew up in a rapidly changing social context. The opening of Vietnam’s borders, both economically and culturally, has given rise to concerns that the sanctity of the institution of marriage in Vietnam as well as the longevity of individual marriages may be weakened as a result of the detraditionalization and/or modernization of marriage in Vietnam. This article investigates the meaning of marriage to young people in Vietnam, by drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with 60 married people aged not over 30. It addresses the questions: What do young people in Vietnam think about marriage? Is it important to them? If so, why and in what ways? The findings reflect two main facets in the young people’s thinking about marriage. The first identifies marriage as an essential institution, one that is supported by social norms of family and marriage in Vietnam. The second emphasizes the rewards that marriage potentially provides to individuals. While there was general consensus regarding these two claims, there were nevertheless some differences of opinion between men and women, and across rural and urban contexts.     

A Family Matter

Abstract

The 2004 debate over civil marriage for same-gender couples highlights issues faced by mixed-orientation couples after one of the spouses comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The disclosure becomes a family matter as their spouses and children cope with the new information and antigay attitudes. The majority of couples divorce. A minority stays married for three years or more by developing strategies that enhance the relationship, offset outside pressures, and sustain the family circle. Peers provide the most support, while therapists are often unfamiliar with sexual orientation, mixed orientation couples, or societal attitudes that impact families with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual parent. This article provides that information so that professionals can help these couples improve the quality of their lives and develop skills to create a future in which homosexuality, same-gender relationships, and gay parenting are more widely accepted and legalized. This development would decrease the number of mixed-orientation marriages with closeted spouses and increase the potential for both types of families to form lasting marriages and strong family units.     

An investigation on rural birthrates in Hubei Province

In 1981, the Population Research Section of the Department of Economics of Wuhan University joined forces with personnel sent by family planning institutions of communes, countries, and prefectures of concern in Hubei Province to form a joint investigation group and went down for 4 months to conduct a representative survey of the rural birthrate in 15 production brigades. This paper states the results of the investigation. The marriage rate was 18.14/1000 when calculated on the basis of the 1980 average population. Since the new marriage law provides that women can get married when they reach the age of 20, at present the number of rural women applying for marriage certificates beginning at age 20 has been increasing day by day. 90% of the married women had a 1st birth within 4 years of marriage; the 2nd year of marriage is the peak period of reproduction during which 1/2 of the married women gave birth. Other results show that 1) on the basis of an average interval of 2 years between 1st marriage and 1st birth, the average interval between births from the 2nd through the 5th is about 3 years each; 2) the birthrate by age groups is 2.99395; 3) the gross reproduction rate was as high as 2.5 before Liberation and the net reproduction rate reached 1.7; and 4) among the 728 persons investigated, those who wished to have 1 child accounted for only 5% of the total, 2 children 51%, 3 children 28%, and 4 children 15%. The peasants' ideology of having many births is intricate; it is the comprehensive reflection of socioeconomic, ideological, and traditional factors. To guide the peasants' birth-related thinking onto a track in line with the family planning policy of the state calls for painstaking work and further improvement of the birth control policy.     

Equity Dynamics in the Perceived Fairness of Infant Care

How is the perceived fairness of infant care affected by spouses' relative contributions to it and to other domains of their relationship? Longitudinal data on 178 couples expecting the birth of their first child were collected during a period spanning approximately the first year of the child's life. Overall, wives were more likely than husbands to see infant care as fair to the wife. Net of fathers' contributions to infant care, spouses were more likely to see infant care as fair to wives the more the father worked in paid labor and did housework and the more wives benefited in the sexual relationship. Fathers' contributions to infant care had a stronger effect on fairness when the child was a son. The findings are consistent with equity predictions in that fathers' compensatory contributions to other domains of marriage counterbalance an unequal workload in the arena of family work.