FAMILY STRUCTURE AND COLLEGE GRADUATION: IS THE STEPPARENT EFFECT MORE NEGATIVE THAN THE SINGLE PARENT EFFECT?

We use data from the National Longitudinal Education Study (NELS) to build upon previous research that considered the negative effects of living in mother-only families and stepparent families on the subsequent educational attainment of children. Our results break new ground in finding that although those who lived in a mother-only family are not less likely overall to graduate college than those who lived with two biological parents, they are significantly less likely to graduate college given four-year college attendance even when other important factors are controlled. In addition, we find that those who lived in a stepparent family are less likely overall to graduate college than those who lived with two biological parents when other important factors are controlled. This difference for those who lived in a stepparent family is due to lower chances of four-year college attendance given high school graduation and of college graduation given four-year college attendance.     

GENDER ROLE ATTITUDES AND MARRIAGE AMONG YOUNG WOMEN

Although sociological research on family change has emphasized the importance of gender role attitudes for decades, relatively few empirical studies have demonstrated behavioral consequences of these attitudes. We formulate hypotheses predicting both an impact of gender role attitudes on early marriage behavior and a reciprocal impact of early marriage behavior on changes in gender role attitudes. We also investigate the role of cohabitation in these relationships. While previous research has found that women who believe that wives should be homemakers enter marriage more quickly, we find that under some conditions these attitudes delay marriage. We use multiwave panel data to show that the behavioral impact of gender role attitudes on early marriage depends on plans for attending school. Among young women who expect to complete a four-year college degree or more, believing that wives should be homemakers leads to lower rates of marriage; however, among young women with low educational expectations, believing that wives should be homemakers leads to higher rates of marriage. In addition, we show that experiencing a marriage in early adulthood leads to more agreement that wives should be homemakers.     

Racial differences in marriage and childbearing: oral history evidence from the South in the early twentieth century

Using oral histories collected in 1938 and 1939 in the Southern United States, this article examines how African-Americans and whites viewed marriage and nonmarital childbearing. The authors document distinct racial differences in family norms and the sanctions that supported those norms. Giving birth outside a marital relationship was clearly not the stigmatizing event for African-Americans that it was for whites. The authors also found that African-Americans were more likely than whites to end marriages under similar conditions. These results suggest that debates about contemporary racial differences need to take into account the historical background, both cultural and demographic, of diverse groups.     

Selection works both ways: BMI and marital formation among young women

The literature on entry into marriages has almost universally regarded a high body mass index (BMI) to be a disadvantage for women in the marriage market. But the theoretical effect of BMI on marital entry is actually uncertain because women who anticipate poor outcomes in the marriage market are more likely to accept early offers, while women with more desirable characteristics can afford to wait for a better match. Using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we show that female entry into marriage does decline as BMI rises, but that early marriage is nonlinear in BMI. Women with an extremely high BMI or with a BMI in the most attractive range are less likely to marry early.     

“Every Place Has a Ghetto…”: The Significance of Whites' Social and Residential Segregation

The residential and social segregation of whites from blacks creates a socialization process we refer to as “white habitus.” This white habitus limits whites' chances for developing meaningful relationships with blacks and other minorities spatially and psychologically. Using data from the 1997 Survey of College Students' Social Attitudes and the 1998 Detroit Area Study, we show that the spatial segregation experienced by whites from blacks fosters segregated lifestyles and leads them to develop positive views about themselves and negative views about blacks. First, we document the high levels of whites' residential and social segregation. Next, we examine how whites interpret their own self‐segregation. Finally, we examine how whites' segregation shapes their racial expressions, attitudes, cognitions, and even their sense of aesthetics as illustrated by their views on the subject of interracial marriage.     

Rethinking Families and Community: The Color,Class, and Centrality of Extended Kin Ties1

Although a focus on marriage and the nuclear family characterizes much sociological research and social commentary, this article suggests that this focus ignores the familial experiences of many Americans, particularly those on the lower end of the economic spectrum for whom extended kin are central. African Americans and Latinos/as are more involved with kin than whites, but class trumps race in this regard: African Americans, Latinos/as, and whites with fewer economic resources rely more on extended kin than do those more affluent. The emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family may actually promulgate a vision of family life that dismisses the very social resources and community ties that are critical to the survival strategies of those in need. In contrast to those who have argued that marriage is the foundation of the community or even, in that overused phrase, the “basic unit of society,” this article suggests that marriage actually detracts from social ties to broader communities just as an emphasis on marriage and the nuclear family, to the exclusion of the extended family, distorts and reduces the power and reach of social policy.     

Women's Childhood Experience: A Perspective from Rural Haryana,India

The childhood experience of women is an important aspect of study in order to promote a change in women's fertility behavior and individual perpetration of gender discrimination. We looked into different dimensions and correlates of childhood experiences by exploring data of 329 women in an ethnographic survey conducted in five villages of Haryana, India. We found women's childhood experiences in rural Haryana were relatively worse; a significant proportion of women had faced food discrimination during their childhood and also were abused/cursed by the family because of their gender. Almost none of the women were asked for their opinion before arranging their marriage and in most cases their marriage was considered a burden. We conclude that a life cycle approach should be taken to examine the situation of girls in rural India starting from early childhood into adolescence and womanhood in order to solve the problem of high gender discrimination within the society.     

Union Formation and Depression: Selection and Relationship Effects

Many studies have established that married people fare better than their never‐married counterparts in terms of psychological well‐being. It is still unclear, however, whether this advantage is due primarily to beneficial effects of marriage or to the selection of psychologically healthier individuals into marriage. This study employs data on young adults from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to test hypotheses based on both selection (N= 878) and relationship (N= 722) effects. Further, we differentiate union formation into cohabitation and marriage with and without prior cohabitation. Results indicate no evidence of selection of less depressed persons into either marriage or cohabitation, but a negative effect of entry into marriage on depression, particularly when marriage was not preceded by cohabitation.     

Race Differences in Family Experience and Early Sexual Initiation: Dynamic Models of Family Structure and Family Change

We examine the effects of family structure on age at first sexual intercourse before marriage for a recent cohort of women. Previous research on the linkage between family structure and sexual initiation has employed relatively crude measures of family structure—typically a snapshot of the respondent's family structure at age 14. We use retrospective parent histories from the 1979–1987 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to construct dynamic measures of family structure, using information on the number and types of parents in the respondent's household between birth and age 18. We use these measures in proportional hazard models to test the effects of prolonged exposure to a single‐mother family, prolonged absence of a biological father, parental presence during adolescence, and family turbulence. For White women, age‐specific rates of first sexual intercourse are significantly and positively associated with the number of family transitions; for Black women, age‐specific rates are significantly and positively associated with having resided in a mother‐only or father‐only family during adolescence. Net of other effects of family structure, we find no significant effects for White or Black women of being born out of wedlock, prolonged exposure to a single‐mother family, or prolonged absence of a biological father. Our results for White women are consistent with a turbulence hypothesis, whereas for Black women our results suggest the importance of family structure during adolescence. For neither White nor Black women are our results consistent with hypotheses positing earlier initiation of sexual activity for women with prolonged exposure to a single‐mother or father‐absent family.     

The Effects of Family Structure of Origin on Offspring Cohabitation Duration

This study uses data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the effects of family structure of origin on offspring's cohabiting unions. Parental divorce substantially decreases the likelihood that these relationships end in marriage, but this effect is almost completely ameliorated by parental remarriage. Parental divorce also increases the chances that a cohabiting relationship will break up, but the effect is much smaller than the impact of parental divorce on marital stability. I explain this discrepancy by showing that cohabitation is inherently unstable compared to marriage. In a context of instability, family structure of origin makes less difference than it does in marriage.     

Family Instability and the Transition to Adulthood

Children's experience of repeated family structure change has a robust association with compromised development across the early life course. Implicit in prior research is the expectation that disparities in cognition and behavior accumulate through childhood and adolescence to influence the transition to adulthood. The authors assessed the association of early and later family structure instability with events in the transition to adulthood up to age 24 using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 8,841).They found that early and later family instability are associated with low rates of college completion, early union formation and childbearing, and an early entry into the labor force. The associations are explained by family structure, delinquency, and academic performance in adolescence.     

Early-life origins of the race gap in men's mortality

Using a life course framework, we examine the early life origins of the race gap in men's all-cause mortality. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men (1966-1990), we evaluate major social pathways by which early life conditions differentiate the mortality experiences of blacks and whites. Our findings indicate that early life socioeconomic conditions, particularly parental occupation and family structure, explain part of the race gap in mortality. Black men's higher rates of death are associated with lower socioeconomic standing in early life and living in homes lacking both biological parents. However these effects operate indirectly through adult socioeconomic achievement processes, as education, family income, wealth, and occupational complexity statistically account for the race gap in men's mortality. Our findings suggest that policy interventions to eliminate race disparities in mortality and health should address both childhood and adult socioeconomic conditions.     

SHOULD WE GET MARRIED? THE EFFECT OF PARENTS' MARRIAGE ON OUT‐OF‐WEDLOCK CHILDREN

Using a representative sample of children all born to unwed parents drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and a potential outcome approach to account for self-selection into marriage, we investigate whether marriage after childbearing has a causal effect on early child development. Comparing children with similar background characteristics and parental mate-selection patterns who differ only in terms of whether their parents marry after childbirth, we find that marriage after childbirth significantly increases a child's early cognitive performance but there is no evidence that it affects child asthma risk or behavioral outcomes.     

The changing meaning of cohabitation and marriage

"In the Netherlands, the social meaning of both marriage and cohabitation has changed. Cohabitation started as an alternative way of living, developed into a temporary phase before marriage, and finally became a strategy for moving into a union gradually....This article addresses the question whether or not individual past and current life-course experiences become increasingly important in explaining the differentiation of entry into marriage across female birth cohorts, and yet become decreasingly important in explaining the differentiation of entry into cohabitation across female birth cohorts. This question is examined using a non-proportional hazard model. Empirical evidence supports this hypothesis strongly, in that both past determinants such as family size or religion and current life-course determinants such as work or education change in their impact on cohabitation and marriage across birth cohorts."     

The Changing Demography of America's Families

We use data from a variety of sources to describe recent dramatic changes in the composition, economic stability, and diversity of American families. The declining prevalence of early marriage, increasing level of marital dissolution, and growing tendency to never marry, especially among some racial and ethnic groups, reflect changes in the relative economic prospects of men and women and support the conclusion that marriage is becoming less valued as a source of economic stability. These developments also imply that relatively more children are born outside of marriage, spend at least part of their childhood in a single‐parent household, and endure multiple changes in family composition. Paralleling these trends have been sharp changes in the economic stability of families, characterized most notably by a growing importance of women's income and increasing economic inequality among American families.     

The Changing Impact of Marriage,Motherhood and Work on Women's Poverty

SUMMARY

This study evaluates historical changes in the relative importance of key factors influencing white, African American, and Hispanic women's poverty. Empirical results, based on reduced form logistic regressions, indicate that work has become, relative to marriage, a potentially better way to decrease women's poverty. The greater relative importance of work when compared to marriage is strongest for blacks and weakest for whites, although for all three groups of women this pattern holds. This trend is consistent with the move from women's main economic support being generated through marriage to instead being generated through work. At the same time, children continue to increase women's chances of being in poverty, though their impact has changed differently among the three groups. The findings suggest that resources directed towards alleviating poverty should ideally be allocated towards efforts to create good job opportunities combined with support to reduce the costs associated with balancing market and family responsibilities.     

Mexican Americans’ Lucky Few and Baby Boom Cohorts: How Is Relative Cohort Size Related to the Likelihood of Being Out-of-Poverty?

Generational cohorts influence individuals’ economic life chances. Retrospective analysis has found that the “Lucky Few” generation had better life chances than previous generations. We focus on Mexican Americans in the United States and offer a prospective analysis to explore how relative cohort size plays a role in the odds of their being out-of-poverty. Using Public Use Microdata Sample files from 1990, 2000, and 2010, we test the hypothesis by comparing Early Baby Boom (those born between 1946 and 1955) and Late Baby Boom (those born between 1956 and 1965) cohorts to the Lucky Few (born between 1936 and 1945) cohort. Models predicting the odds of being out-of-poverty during the peak wage-earning years indicate that belonging to the Lucky Few cohort affords Mexican Americans no economic advantage. Our findings demonstrate that the relative cohort size hypothesis may not always be generalized to Mexican American minority samples.     

Asian American Interracial and Interethnic Marriages: Differences by Education and Nativity1

Using the 1990 U.S. census data, we apply log‐linear models to examine Asian Americans' interracial marriage with whites and interethnic marriages between Asian ethnic groups. Japanese and Filipino Americans are most likely to marry whites, followed by Chinese and Korean Americans. Southeast Asian and Asian Indian Americans are least likely to marry whites. We further explore how interracial marriage differs by couples' educational and nativity combinations. The impact of educational attainment, generally, is very strong but is modest for Japanese Americans, the most assimilated group, and for Southeast Asian Americans, the least assimilated group. Interracial marriage is more likely for native than for immigrant couples, but immigrants marrying natives are more likely to marry whites than persons of their own ethnic group. Interethnic marriage between Asian ethnic groups is limited to several ethnic groups, but is much more frequent among natives than among immigrants. Japanese and Chinese Americans, who have lived in the United States for several generations, have the highest rate of interethnic marriage. We have shown two forms of integration for Asian Americans – integration into mainstream society through interracial marriage for both immigrants and natives and integration into Asian American pan‐ethnicity through interethnic marriage for later‐generation natives.     

Associations of Childhood Religious Attendance,Family Structure,and Nonmarital Fertility Across Cohorts

This article considers associations among childhood family structure, childhood religious service attendance, and the probability of having a nonmarital first birth before age 30 for non‐Hispanic White women born 1944 to 1964 using data from the 1988 and 1995 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 5,995). We found that attending religious services weekly during childhood and growing up in a 2‐biological‐parent family were associated with lower odds of having had a nonmarital first birth. These associations were quite stable across cohorts, although religious attendance was less associated with nonmarital fertility for the youngest cohort. We estimate that changes in these childhood experiences account for 22% of the increase in nonmarital first births across these cohorts.     

Regional living conditions, migration, and family composition]

"On the basis of life history data of German birth cohorts born 1929-31, 1939-41, and 1949-51 hypotheses about the relation between regional context, migration and family formation are tested. Results of proportional hazard models do not show significant regional effects on first birth rates for stayers when sociostructural variables are controlled for. However, social background and employment status of [women], which are proved to be important factors concerning family formation, reflect differential regional opportunities on the labor market. For men including the indicator of marriage in the model makes the regional effect insignificant." The impact on fertility of rural or urban residence and of rural-urban migration is analyzed. (SUMMARY IN ENG)