Gender role equity and marital satisfaction among Korean couples

This study examines gender role behaviors and attitudes related to marital satisfaction. Nontraditional attitudes and behaviors are expected to affect negatively marital satisfaction due to the lack of guidelines and due to the other positive alternatives to marital roles. DAta, collected from a survey of 291 married couples in Seoul, Korea in 1991, largely support the hypotheses, which are fairly consistent with the results of studies of American couples. Nontraditional gender role attitudes and wife's employment are related to lower marital satisfaction. However, the housekeeper role has changed somewhat more than the male provider role, so that nontraditional tendencies, in attitudes and behaviors, with respect to the housekeeper role have been related to higher marital satisfaction. Findings of this study show that measures of actual division of household labor are better related to marital satisfaction than are measures of perceived division of household labor. The consistent trends in marital satisfaction in Korea compared with those in the US suggest a further high marital instability in Korea.     

Gender in Marriage and Life Satisfaction Under Gender Imbalance in China: The Role of Intergenerational Support and SES

This study examined gender differences in the influence of marital status and marital quality on life satisfaction. The roles of intergenerational support and perceived socioeconomic status in the relationship between marriage and life satisfaction were also explored. The analysis was conducted with data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2006, representing 1,317 women and 1,152 men at least 25 years old. Chi-squared tests and logistic regression models were used in this process. Marriage, including marital status and relationship quality, has a protective function for life satisfaction. Marital status is more important for males, but marital quality is more important for females. The moderating roles of intergenerational support and perceived socioeconomic status are gender specific, perhaps due to norms that ascribe different roles to men and women in marriage.     

Measuring the concept of marital quality as social indicators in urban China

The research reported in this article examines the theoretical and empirical dimensionality of marital quality in urban Chinese marriages. Using survey data from the People's Republic of China, the author carried out a series of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). Results revealed that the quality of urban Chinese Marriages can be conceptualized as a two-factorial and multidimensional construct. To further validate and generalize this conceptualization, the very same CFA models were tested in both arranged and free choice marriages. The finding indicated that marital quality can be indeed measured by marital interaction, marital satisfaction, marital disagreement, marital problem, and marital instability indicators. This result is consistent with the marital quality literature in the United States.     

Unemployment and marital dissolution

This paper analyses the effects of unemployment on the probability of marital dissolution. Based on panel data for a sample of Danish married couples, we estimate a dynamic model for the probability of marital dissolution where we take into account the possible effects of unemployment for both spouses. We also control for other factors such as education, age, presence of children, place of residence, health and economic factors. The empirical results show that unemployment seems to be an important factor behind marital instability. However, only unemployment of the husband has an effect, and this effect is immediate.We thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.     

Children and marital disruption: A replication and update

Data from the 1980 June Current Population Survey are used to estimate the incidence and duration of marital disruption as experienced by children. Rates during the 1977-1979 period suggest that about two-fifths of children born to married mothers will experience the disruption of that marriage while they are children. When children born before their mothers' first marriage are included, half of recent cohorts are likely to spend some time in a single parent family. These rates increased consistently over the 1970s. For the majority of those who experience a marital disruption, over five years are likely to elapse before the mother remarries. Furthermore, about half of the children who go through a divorce and remarriage will experience the breakup of the new family as well. At the same time, the interval between separation and divorce is less than a year for most children involved. There are major differences in these rates by race and important differences as well by education and age of mother. Replication of our earlier estimates for comparable periods was quite good for the estimates of the experience of marital dissolution, but somewhat less so for the analysis of mother's subsequent remarriage.     

The Mediating Role of Perceived Parental Warmth and Parental Punishment in the Psychological Well-Being of Children in Rural China

Research has documented that parenting practices, such as parental warmth and parental punishment, play a mediating role in linking individual (e.g., age, gender) and familial characteristics (e.g., economic status, marital quality) to the psychological well-being of children. However, few studies have validated these connections with respect to the Chinese population, especially those in rural areas of China plagued with unfavorable conditions such as poverty and lack of education. In this study, we investigated whether child (age, gender, and sibship size), and familial characteristics (family wealth, parental education, and marital quality) indirectly contribute to the children??s psychological well-being (as indicated by their self-reported internalizing and externalizing problems) through their perceived parental warmth and parental punishment. Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed data collected from 2,000 children (ages 9?C13) and their parents in rural China. The results reveal significant, indirect relationships from family wealth and marital quality to these children??s externalizing problems through parental warmth and parental punishment. There are age and gender differences in the children??s experiencing internalizing and externalizing problems. Gender differences are also found in their perceived parental warmth and parental punishment. Directions for future research are discussed.     

The impact of men's and women's retirement on marital relations: a comparative analysis

The study examined whether men's and women's retirement have a differential impact on several aspects of marital life: Power relations (as reflected in decision-making), spousal resources, division of household tasks, and quality of marriage. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 519 pre-retired and retired Israelis. The findings indicate that in general, both men's and women's retirement have a similar impact on marital relations in all of the areas examined. No appreciable change in spousal resources was found after retirement, but there was evidence of change in decision-making patterns about spending time and carrying out feminine and general tasks. Retired respondents of both sexes reported fewer marital complaints than the pre-retired respondents, but also expressed less marital enjoyment. It was also found that men's retirement has a different impact than women's retirement on decisions about house-hold affairs and performance of feminine tasks. In addition, gender-based differences were found in several areas, irrespective of employment status. The women reported higher quality of marriage than did the men, and more resources for strengthening the family, whereas the men perceived themselves as making more decisions in the important areas of life, as more hardy, and as controlling the family's financial resources.     

An analysis of marital status]

In the 1980 census, a special investigation was conducted in Wuxi City on the marital status of the local population above the age of fifteen. The investigation covered detailed information concerning those married, divorced, single, and widowed. Results from this investigation show that more men are single than women, and more men are also widowed. In part this is because the average age for husband is older than his wife and the death rate higher is for men than women. Data show that the popular marriage age is between 25 and 29, evidence of a general trend toward late marr iage. In the area of the divorce rate, the rate for women in the city is higher than that in the countryside. The divorce rate for men is higher in the countryside than in the city. In the rate of being single through a lifetime, the rate for men in the countryside is higher than that in the city. This situation shows that in the countryside, because of the poor geographical and economic condition, men suffer from their marriage status. Generally speaking, the divorce rate in China is still lower than that of Western countries and the marital status in China remains more stable. The marital status is influenced by many factors, such as the social and economic situation, customs and habits, religious beliefs, profession, and educational and cultural levels. The collection of information regarding the marital status is useful for analysis of the birthrate and population forecast.     

夫妻权利与婚姻满意度关系研究——基于2006全国综合调查的数据分析

根据2006年全国综合调查（CGSS2006）的数据,本文探讨了夫妻权利运行的三个要素：权力基础（教育差、年收入差）;权利过程（互诉烦恼、对钱不同意见频率）;权利结果（家务差、家庭事务决定权）对婚姻满意度的具体影响。多元回归分析表明：权利过程是影响婚姻满意度最重要的环节,其中配偶向被访者诉说烦恼和对钱不同意见频率都有显著影响：教育差虽也有一定的负向显著度,但其影响程度较小;夫妻年收入差、家务差和家庭事务决定权并无显著性。     

Explaining the Gender Wealth Gap

To assess and explain the United States’ gender wealth gap, we use the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to examine wealth accumulated by a single cohort over 50 years by gender, by marital status, and limited to the respondents who are their family’s best financial reporters. We find large gender wealth gaps between currently married men and women, and between never-married men and women. The never-married accumulate less wealth than the currently married, and there is a marital disruption cost to wealth accumulation. The status-attainment model shows the most power in explaining gender wealth gaps between these groups explaining about one-third to one-half of the gap, followed by the human-capital explanation. In other words, a lifetime of lower earnings for women translates into greatly reduced wealth accumulation. After controlling for the full model, we find that a gender wealth gap remains between married men and women that we speculate may be related to gender differences in investment strategies and selection effects.     

Religion as a determinant of marital stability

Using data from the 1987–1988 National Survey of Families and Households, this paper studies the role of the religious composition of unions as a determinant of marital stability. With the exceptions of Mormons and individuals with no religious identification, stability is found to be remarkably similar across the various types of homogamous unions. Consistent with the notion that religion is a complementary marital trait, interfaith unions have generally higher rates of dissolution than intrafaith unions. The destabilizing effect of out-marriage varies inversely with the similarity in beliefs and practices of the two religions as well as with the mutual tolerance embodied in their respective doctrines. The results also suggest that religious compatibility between spouses at the time of marriage has a large influence on marital stability, rivaling in magnitude that of age at marriage and, at least for Protestants and Catholics, dominating any adverse effects of differences in religious background.     

A joint model of marital childbearing and marital disruption

Married couples with children appear to be less likely to end their marriages than childless couples, especially when the children are young. Although this suggests that children affect the chances that their parents will divorce, the process may not be so simple: the chances that the marriage will last also may affect couples’ willingness to make the commitment to the marriage implied by having children. This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to test the hypothesis that the risk of disruption faced by a married woman affects the chances that she will conceive and bear a child. The model used takes into account the simultaneous relationships between marital dissolution and marital fertility by including the hazard of disruption as a predictor of timing and likelihood of marital conception, and by including the results of previous fertility decisions as predictors of disruption of the marriage. We find that the hazard of disruption has strong negative effects on the hazard of marital childbearing, lengthening the intervals between births and decreasing the chances that a child will be born. This effect appears to be strongest for women who have had at least one child, either before or during the current marriage, although it is also large for childless women. Explicitly including the hazard of disruption in models of marital childbearing has sizable and important effects on many predictors of fertility.     

A specification of marital fertility by parents’ age,age atmarriage and marital duration

The positive association between wife's age at marriage and fertility experienced at the older reproductive ages, cited in recent natural fertility literature, is explored using Mormon birth cohorts from 1840 to 1879. When this relationship is specified by husband's age at marriage and marriage duration, the results indicate that older-aged husbands depress marital fertility only at higher marriage durations. The general decomposition of age-specific fertility utilizing both mother's and father's age is also considered. The results show that mother's aging is the most important factor, while father's aging has a moderately negative effect under a natural fertility regime.     

Religion as a determinant of marital fertility

This paper develops hypotheses about the effects of husbands‘ and wives‘ religious affiliations on fertility. The hypotheses are based on two central ideas. First, religions differ in their fertility norms and corresponding tradeoffs between the quality and quantity of children; differences in religious beliefs between husband and wife may thus lead to conflict regarding fertility decisions and possible resolution through bargaining. Second, a low level of religious compatibility between the spouses may raise the expected probability of marital dissolution and thereby decrease the optimal amount of investments in spouse-specific human capital. Analyses of data from the 1987–1988 National Survey of Families and Households conducted in the United States suggest that both of these effects play important roles in explaining the observed linkages between the religious composition of unions and fertility behavior. JEL classification: J1, J11, J13 Received February 17, 1995 / Accepted February 15, 1996     

The determinants of marital fertility in the united states, 1968–1970: Inferences from a dynamic model

Criticizing the static assumptions of previous socioeconomic and microeconomic models of marital fertility, particularly regarding the sequential and stochastic facets of family building, this paper advocates a dynamic perspective. Of particular concern is the assumption of equilibrium family size made by those who employ the static perspective. The equilibrium family size assumption implies that the parameters relating social and economic variables to fertility will be similar for all births, regardless of order. To test this assumption of constancy, a two-equation model of fertility and female employment is introduced. Contrary to the static perspective’s implication of constant effects, substantial parity differences in the estimates of parameters for both equations are reported, as are several differences between blacks and whites. On the basis of this evidence, I conclude that the static decision-making framework should be replaced by a dynamic approach to marital fertility.     

The effect of marital status at first birth on marital dissolution among adolescent mothers

The sequencing of marriage and first birth was expected to play an important role in the stability of marriage among adolescent mothers. We hypothesized that adolescent women who married prior to conception would have the lowest rates of marital disruption, followed by those who married between conception and birth. Adolescent women who gave birth prior to marriage were expected to suffer the highest rates of marital dissolution. The results provide partial support for our hypotheses. There is little difference in the probability of separation between adolescent mothers who had a postmarital conception and those who had a premarital conception but married before the birth. Having a premarital birth, however, significantly increases the probability of marital dissolution. We also hypothesized that marital status at first birth would have less effect on the probability of marital dissolution for blacks than for whites. This, too, is generally supported by our findings. Among black females, those with a premarital birth are the first to suffer a marital disruption, but by the end of ten years there is little difference in the probability of separation among the three marital status groups. In contrast, among white females, those with a premarital birth are the first to experience a disruption, and this differential persists over all subsequent marriage duration intervals. Thus, the sequencing of marriage relative to birth has similar short term effects for whites and blacks, but the effect for blacks is evident only in the short term. Ten years after the marriage, black adolescent mothers have similar rates of marital stability regardless of the sequencing of marriage. This is consistent with the findings of previous research and with our hypothesis; with the black family pattern of lower rates of marriage, higher rates of illegitimacy and higher divorce rates, the sequencing of marriage has no long lasting consequences on marital stability. Finally, our predicted decline in the effect of marital status at first birth over historical time also finds partial support. For white females there has been a change in the effect of marriage-first birth sequencing on separation over time. In the period encompassed by the women in our study, white adolescent mothers who married subsequent to the birth have been the most likely to experience a separation at all marriage duration intervals, but this differential narrows as age at interview declines. Among black females there has been no change in the effect of a premarital birth over time.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

The increase in marital status differences in mortality up to the oldest age in seven European countries, 1990-99

We investigate mortality differentials by marital status among older age groups using a database of mortality rates by marital status at ages 40 and over for seven European countries with 1 billion person-years of exposure. The mortality advantage of married people, both men and women, continues to increase up to at least the age group 85-89, the oldest group we are able to consider. We find the largest absolute differences in mortality levels between marital status groups are at high ages, and that absolute differentials are: (i) greater for men than for women; (ii) similar in magnitude across countries; (iii) increase steadily with age; and (iv) are greatest at older age. We also find that the advantage enjoyed by married people increased over the 1990s in almost all cases. We note that results for groups such as older divorced women need to be interpreted with caution.     

The increase in marital status differences in mortality up to the oldest age in seven European countries, 1990–99

We investigate mortality differentials by marital status among older age groups using a database of mortality rates by marital status at ages 40 and over for seven European countries with 1 billion person-years of exposure. The mortality advantage of married people, both men and women, continues to increase up to at least the age group 85–89, the oldest group we are able to consider. We find the largest absolute differences in mortality levels between marital status groups are at high ages, and that absolute differentials are: (i) greater for men than for women; (ii) similar in magnitude across countries; (iii) increase steadily with age; and (iv) are greatest at older age. We also find that the advantage enjoyed by married people increased over the 1990s in almost all cases. We note that results for groups such as older divorced women need to be interpreted with caution.     

Child support awards: Differentials and trends by race and marital status

This study has analyzed data from combined 1979 and 1982 April supplements to the Current Population Survey to study differences in the award of child support by race and marital status. The following findings emerge from this study: The percentage of women with children present from an absent father who are awarded child support varies greatly by race and marital status. Among all women, nonblacks are more than twice as likely as blacks to have a child support award, and the ever-married are almost six times as likely as the never-married to have an award. Among the ever-married, currently separated women are approximately half as likely as the ever-divorced to have secured an award. The lower probability of child support awards among blacks can be attributed in part to their disproportionate membership in marital status groups with lower award probabilities. Blacks are four and one-half times as likely as nonblacks to be among the never-married and almost twice as likely to be among the currently separated. Racial differences in award probabilities exist within all marital status groups except the never-married. Among the currently separated, blacks are one-third less likely than nonblacks to have an award. Among the ever-divorced, blacks are almost one-fourth less likely than nonblacks to have an award. Among the never-married, unlike the ever-married, virtually no statistically significant socioeconomic characteristics appear to distinguish mothers who have a child support award from those who do not. Among all women, 50 to 60 percent of the gross racial differential in award rates can be explained by observed differences in such economic and demographic characteristics as marital status, educational attainment, age, place of residence, and number of children. Among the ever-married, 50 percent of the gross racial difference can be explained by these factors. Among the ever-married, the likelihood of being awarded child support at marital disruption has increased over time, but this upward trend has been different for blacks and nonblacks. Among nonblacks, the proportion of women obtaining a child support award increased 1.3 percent per year between 1960 and 1975 and then declined 0.4 percent per year since then. Among blacks, the proportion increased 0.8 percent per year between 1960 and 1975 and then accelerated to 1.6 percent per year since then.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)