Divorce-risk trends in Sweden 1971–1993

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an updated system of annual indexes of divorce risks and to use the system to display trends in divorce risks for Swedish women over the years since 1971. Divorce-risk trends turn out to have been quite different for women at different parities. Trends for women in their first marriage (the majority) are also somewhat different from trends in later marriages. After a spurt in divorces at parity 0 connected with a divorce reform in 1974, divorce risks have been quite stable for women at this parity, but they have increased steadily among married mothers, mostly as an effect of an increasing prevalence of premarital childbearing. Our indexes are produced by an indirect standardization of register data with respect to women's age at marriage, duration of marriage, and order of marriage. We also recommend standardization with respect to an indicator of premarital childbearing, which is particularly important in a population with extensive nonmarital cohabitation.     

初婚解体风险变化趋势及其影响因素——基于CFPS2010数据的分析

基于中国家庭追踪调查数据(CFPS2010),分析中国初婚解体风险变化趋势及其影响因素。结果表明:随时间推移,初婚解体风险总体呈现上升趋势,其对城市的影响超过了农村,对女性的影响超过了男性;初婚年龄与初婚解体风险呈现轻微的U型关系,主要是由早婚或晚婚的婚姻异质性所引起;婚姻异质性对初婚解体风险的作用受择偶梯度的影响,"男高女低"婚姻模式的初婚离婚风险远远小于"女高男低"模式;在家庭因素的影响中,生育孩子有利于降低初婚离婚风险,而与父母同住及婚前同居则显著增加了初婚离婚风险。     

The Impact of Children on Divorce Risks of Swedish Women

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of children on divorce risks in 1971–1994 for first-married Swedish women. This impact is examined using two measures of family composition, namely the number of children and the age of the youngest child, and we find an independent effect from each of these factors on the propensity to divorce. There is an additional impact of births prior to marriage on the subsequent divorce risk. We present time series of divorce risks for women with different types of children, showing trends for both the factors of parity and age of youngest child. The general picture of Swedish divorce-risk trends shows a strong increase in 1974, mostly among childless women, in response to a reform of the divorce legislation. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the risks have increased steadily, mostly among mothers. Our study is performed by indirect standardization of register data and we also control for the effects of age at and duration of marriage.     

How Similar are Cohabiting and Married Parents? Second Conception Risks by Union Type in the United States and Across Europe

The increase in births within cohabitation in the United States and across Europe suggests that cohabitation and marriage have become more similar with respect to childbearing. However, little is known about additional childbearing after first birth. Using harmonized union and fertility histories from surveys in 15 countries, this study examines second conception risks leading to a live birth for women who have given birth within a union. Results show that women who continue to cohabit after birth have significantly lower second conception risks than married women in all countries except those in Eastern Europe, even when controlling for union duration, union dissolution, age at first birth, and education. Pooled models indicate that differences in the second conception risks by union type between Eastern and Western Europe are significant. Pooled models including an indicator for the diffusion of cohabitation show that when first births within cohabitation are rare, cohabiting women have significantly lower second conception risks than married women. As first births within cohabitation increase, differences in second conception risks for cohabiting and married women narrow. But as the percent increases further, the differentials increase again, suggesting that cohabitation and marriage are not becoming equivalent settings for additional childbearing. However, I also find that in all countries except Estonia, women who marry after first birth have second conception risks similar to couples married at first birth, indicating that the sequence of marriage and childbearing does not matter to fertility as much as the act of marrying itself.     

再婚人群计划生育现状及思考

随着离婚率的逐年上升，再婚人员这一特殊群体照顾生育的人数比例也逐年增加，计划外怀孕、生育现象逐年增多。为扼制再婚人群计划外怀孕、生育现象，建议加强婚和育的同步管理，健全照顾再生一个孩子的审批制度等     

Childbearing Following Marital Dissolution in Britain

This paper investigates the subsequent fertility of British women who have experienced the dissolution of their first marriage in recent decades. Data for 7739 women from the 1990–1995 General Household Surveys are used to examine the socio-demographic factors associated with experiencing a post-dissolution birth. Just under one half of women who had experienced marital dissolution went on to experience a conception within twelve years. A women's age and her repartnering status are shown to be the factors most strongly associated with the probability of a post-dissolution conception. The age of a woman's youngest child is found to be more strongly associated with her likelihood of experiencing a conception than her parity at marital dissolution.     

Using Split-Population Models to Examine Predictors of the Probability and Timing of Parity Progression

Survival models are widely used in demography to analyse the timing of events such as death or leaving school. However, for events such as marriage or childbirth that are not experienced by everyone, standard survival analysis conflates the speed of progressing to an event with the proportion that never experience the event. The problem can be overcome by applying a ‘split population’ or ‘cure’ survival time model which splits the population into those who eventually experience the event and those who do not, and determines the speed of progression for the former. This paper demonstrates the use of split-population models in examining variables which affect the propensity and timing of additional births. The data analysed are from a sample of women from the 2001 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey (N = 4,611). We model the propensity and time to have another child given sex composition of existing children, number of siblings and age at first birth for three cohorts of women. The study finds evidence of a preference for a mixed-sex composition, and an increased propensity for women with two boys to try for a third child. Women in later cohorts tend to have more children if they themselves come from larger families. Age at first birth is strongly associated with the propensity to have another child and with the speed of progression.     

Wanting a Child Without a Firm Commitment to the Partner: Interpretations and Implications of a Common Behaviour Pattern among Norwegian Cohabitants

Further knowledge of combined birth and marriage intentions among cohabiting couples will improve our understanding of the nature of consensual unions and be important from a policy perspective. According to Norwegian surveys from 1988 and 1996, about 1/3 of the births to cohabiting couples are mistimed. Among the remainder, between 1/2 and 3/4 are to couples who at least have no intention to marry within the next couple of years. The most radical estimate, based on the most recent survey, is that there are three equally large categories of births to cohabiting couples: mistimed births, intended births to couples planning marriage, and intended births to couples with no marriage plans whatever. The 1996 survey also revealed that a clear majority of these couples who appear to want a child without planning marriage, explain this attitude partly by the less easy dissolution of a marriage. In other words, their consensual union is indeed considered different from marriage in terms of commitment and stability and they may have concerns about the quality of the relationship. There were weak indications that cohabitants with an intended birth in the absence of marriage plans were less likely than others to consider a parental break-up to be very deleterious for the child.     

Economics, law, and covenant marriage

Covenant marriage may be difficult to understand as a gender issue. However, marriage and divorce are closely linked to workforce participation and child rearing. This piece looks at new proposals for choices in divorce regime from legal, economic, and social perspectives, concluding that the option of contracting a more permanent form of marriage increases the possibilities for women and signals societal interest in promoting more stable families. The article favorably compares Louisiana covenant marriage legislation to other states' suggestions for returns to fault-only regimes, and pays some attention to the role one state's marriage and divorce laws play in the federal system.     

沿海发达地区农村离婚现象研究

珠三角农村地区经济发达,最近10年当地离婚现象呈现出快速增长趋势,年轻夫妻是离婚主体,大部分离婚案例由女性主张。调查发现,当地农村离婚现象主要与以下因素有关:一是当地农村是全国农村的婚姻高地,外地女性大量流入,当地女性在婚姻市场进而在家庭权力结构、家庭矛盾中处于劣势地位;二是当地农民家庭缺乏明确的共同奋斗目标,使得夫妻之间难以形成紧密的相互依赖、协商、支持的关系,夫妻关系完全维系于情感;三是当地农村夫妻之间在经济、亲戚关系、交往圈子上相互独立,使得夫妻之间在家庭责任、义务方面去公共性,夫妻关系纽带不牢固;四是当地宗族观念重,中老年人掌握财产权,维系着传统家庭秩序和权力格局,这与年轻女性主体性伸张形成较大张力,容易导致婆(翁)媳矛盾,进而可能引发夫妻矛盾。这样,年轻女性在家庭中无法获得应有的地位和话语权,难以实现主体意志,因而在发生家庭矛盾或失去夫妻感情之后容易提出离婚,而年轻男子则因为容易再婚亦不畏惧离婚,从而导致当地离婚、再婚、复婚现象频仍。     

河南省部分农村地区育龄妇女生育意愿分析

通过多阶段整群抽样方法对2 098名河南农村育龄妇女进行横断面调查和利用SAS9.0软件对调查数据进行分析,我省育龄妇女中希望生育2个或2个以下孩子的占99.28%;期望生男孩的是期望生女孩的1.8倍;年龄越小,对生男孩子的期望越低。这说明河南农村育龄妇女生育观念有了较大的转变。     

Economic Determinants of Divorce Among Dual-Earner Couples: Jews in Israel

The second half of the twentieth century saw tremendous changes in the economics of the household, as women entered the labor force in growing numbers and the share of dual-earners couples increased. These changes challenge the available theories which explain divorce by economic factors, as they are mostly molded in the homemaker-breadwinner model. In this study, we investigate the validity of two main groups of theories: one which asserts that women??s work has a destabilizing effect on marriage, and assumes asymmetry between the spouses; and another which states that women??s employment has a stabilizing effect, and assumes that relations between spouses are symmetric. By employing a large-scale longitudinal register-based data for the Jewish population in Israel, we find asymmetry in the effect of the spouses?? economic characteristics on marital instability, which suggest that theories that assert asymmetry and power relations between the spouses better explain transition to divorce among this group. In line with theories of income pooling, higher shared salaries are found to increase marital stability. Nonetheless, our results demonstrate that the basic assumption of symmetry between the spouses in these theories does not hold. Although employment stability for both spouses appears to reduce divorce risk, only the husband??s salary is shown to negatively affect the odds of divorce and only the wife??s working hours and sector of employment affect marriage instability. Moreover, couples in which the wife earns as much as or more than the husband are found to have the highest divorce risk.     

Marriage Migration Versus Family Reunification: How Does the Marriage and Migration History Affect the Timing of First and Second Childbirth Among Turkish Immigrants in Germany?

Our study focuses on the fertility of first-generation female and male Turkish migrants in Germany. To evaluate whether timing effects such as fertility disruption or an interrelation of marriage, migration and childbirth occur, we examine first and second births in the years before and after immigration to Germany. The Turkish sample of the Generations and Gender Survey which was conducted in 2006 offers the unique opportunity to examine Turkish immigrants as a single immigrant category. We question the common understanding that Turkish immigrants who arrived to Germany after 1973 mainly arrived for family reunification resulting in high birth intensities immediately after immigration. To distinguish different circumstances under which male and female immigrants have arrived to Germany, we include the combined marriage and migration history of the couple. We find that first birth probabilities are elevated during the years immediately following migration. But this effect is not universal among migrants with different marriage and migration histories. It appears that the arrival effect of high birth intensities is particularly high among female immigrants and is evident only among marriage migrants, that is Turks who married a partner who already lived in Germany at the time of the wedding. By contrast, among those who immigrated for family reunification, we do not find such an arrival effect.     

新角色 旧职责——20世纪20年代美国妇女婚姻和家庭生活特点及其角色变迁

20世纪年代美国妇女的婚姻家庭呈现新的特点,出现"伙伴关系"的婚姻,女性在物质享受和感情需求方面都提出了更高的要求,避孕观念被普遍接受,生育率下降,离婚率上升;家务劳动大为简化,已婚妇女外出就业呈上升趋势.女性在家庭中承担了新的角色,但传统的职责并没有改变.     

离婚衡平机制研究

离婚制度是婚姻制度的重要组成部分,也是争议最多、问题最多的部分.对离婚的条件、离婚的程序、离婚的效力等等在各国始终都有不同的声音,但归根到底是人们对自由与正义的追问.在无过错离婚浪潮席卷全球之后,对离婚自由是否需要限制以及在实现离婚自由的同时如何体现法律的正义是我们必须要考虑的问题.因此,应在我国建立离婚衡平机制,以更好地保护在离婚中处于弱势地位的妇女的权利.     

Rising Age at Marriage and Fertility in Southern and Eastern Africa

This paper examines the trends in marriage and fertility in nine countries of southern and eastern Africa using DHS data. First, some background about the age at marriage, age at first birth and the proportion of premarital first births is shown. Next, the total fertility is decomposed into its pre- and post-marital parts. Then, pre- and post-marital fertility are examined in more detail. Finally, the effect of rising age at marriage on the fertility declines is measured. It is estimated that around one sixth to one third of the fertility declines are due to rising age at marriage.     

对我国离婚调解制度的思考

法院调解在离婚诉讼中是一个必经程序,但我国婚姻法、民事诉讼法对这一制度的立法不够完善,应当在离婚诉讼中建立专门的离婚调解规则:规定离婚调解中的和解制度;对参与离婚调解案件的法官的综合能力应有具体要求,并特别注重对其法律工作以外的社会经验的培养;实行离婚调解和离婚判决的分离,加强我国离婚诉讼中调解的功能,最大限度保护妇女及未成年子女的权益。     

试论第三者应成为离婚损害赔偿责任的主体

修改后的婚姻法将损害赔偿的相对人锁定为婚姻关系中有过错的一方 ,不涉及婚姻关系之外的第三人。然而 ,对破坏婚姻关系导致离婚的第三者应否作为离婚损害赔偿责任的主体 ,有必要作理论上的探讨。本文通过对婚姻关系之外的第三者破坏他人婚姻行为的性质及危害性的论述 ,提出应将婚姻关系之外的第三者列为离婚损害赔偿责任的主体     

我国婚姻法的变迁:以婚姻的充分自由为导向——基于恩格斯关于婚姻家庭的论断

婚姻的充分自由包括结婚的充分自由和离婚的充分自由。根据恩格斯关于婚姻家庭的论断,以历史分析的方法,对比分析1950、1980年颁布的《婚姻法》、2001年修订后的《婚姻法》和2011年《<婚姻法>若干问题的解释(三)》,认为,建国后,我国婚姻法变迁呈现出以婚姻的充分自由为导向的特征,解释(三)更是恩格斯婚姻家庭论断和婚姻充分自由在现代社会的倡导和实践,是改善妇女地位的催化剂,能促进夫妻在充分了解的基础上,以积极的态度对待婚姻生活,更好地实现可持续的家庭幸福。