Can Pro-Marriage Policies Work? An Analysis of Marginal Marriages

Policies to promote marriage are controversial, and it is unclear whether they are successful. To analyze such policies, one must distinguish between a marriage that is created by a marriage-promoting policy (marginal marriage) and a marriage that would have been formed even in the absence of a state intervention (average marriage). We exploit the suspension of a cash-on-hand marriage subsidy in Austria to examine the differential behavior of marginal and average marriages. The announcement of an impending suspension of this subsidy led to an enormous marriage boom among eligible couples that allows us to locate marginal marriages. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, we show that marginal marriages are surprisingly as stable as average marriages but produce fewer children, children later in marriage, and children who are less healthy at birth.     

First-marriage decrement tables by color and sex for the United States in 1958–60

A new set of first-marriage tables is compared with earlier tables that were prepared by Grabill and Jacobson. The new tables show, among other things, the number of first marriages, first-marriage probabilities, and death probabilities for single persons in a stationary (life table) population by color and sex, based on 1960 Census data on marital status and age at first marriage and on general mortality rates for 1959-61. A comparison of the earlier tables with the new tables provides evidence of a decrease of one or two years in the average age at first marriage between 1920-40 and 1958-60 and an increasing tendency for first marriages to be concentrated within a narrower span of years. The prospects for eventual marriage have risen to the point where it is estimated that all but 3 to 5 percent of the young adults are expected eventually to marry. This development has gone so far that the main question remaining is not whether young people will ever marry, but at what age they will marry.     

The Gendered Double Standard of Aging in US Marriage Markets

Using data on marriages collected in most US states between 1970 and 1988, we show that the older men are when they marry, the more years senior to their brides they are, whether it is a first or higher‐order marriage. While older men with more education marry down in age slightly more than less educated older men, the pattern of men marrying further down if they marry later holds strongly for all education groups. We consider several possible explanations for the tendency of men to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. While we have no direct measure of physical attractiveness, we argue that the most compelling interpretation is that men, more than women, evaluate potential spouses on the basis of appearance. Because the prevailing standard of beauty favors young women, the older men are when they marry, the less they find women their own age attractive relative to younger women, leading them to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. The consequence for women of men's preference for youth is more often that they remain unmarried than that they end up married to much older or less educated men.     

Marital decision-making and the timing of first birth in rural China before the 1990s

Using a sample of couples drawn from the three provinces of Guangdong, Shandong, and Shaanxi, we investigated whether couples’ increasing freedom to choose whom to marry influenced the timing of first birth in rural China during the four decades before the 1990s. The shortening of first-birth intervals in the period is found to be associated with the shift from arranged to free-choice marriages. The association is attributed largely to increased intimacy and coital frequency after marriage together with postponement of age at first marriage.     

The Death of Marriage? The Effects of New Forms of Legal Recognition on Marriage Rates in the United States

Some conservative groups argue that allowing same-sex couples to marry reduces the value of marriage to opposite-sex couples. This article examines how changes in U.S. legal recognition laws occurring between 1995 and 2010 designed to include same-sex couples have altered marriage rates in the United States. Using a difference-in-differences strategy that compares how marriage rates change after legal recognition in U.S. states that alter legal recognition versus states that do not, I find no evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry reduces the opposite-sex marriage rate. Although the opposite-sex marriage rate is unaffected by same-sex couples marrying, it decreases when domestic partnerships are available to opposite-sex couples.     

Marriages of bisexual men

This study examined the marriages of 26 couples in which the husband was bisexual. The subjects were a non-clinical sample married for at least two years and intending to continue their marriages. The sample was, overall, highly educated and earned concomitantly high incomes. Subjects were administered the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and a research questionnaire to determine successful or problematic aspects of their marriages. Subjects were, for the most part, satisfied with the quality of their marriages, sexually active within the marriages, and open about the husband's homosexual behavior. A high-level of sexual activity within the marriage, open and direct communication, a valued friendship, previous counseling or psychotherapy, cognitive flexibility, and financial independence contributed to the success of these marriages. The husbands reported a great deal of ambiguity about their homosexual behavior, and the couples reported intense conflict dealing with their open marriage styles.     

The Retrenchment of Marriage: Results from Marital Status Life Tables for the United States, 1995

Marital status life tables were calculated using 1995 US rates of marriage, divorce, and mortality. Compared to figures for 1988, the proportion of persons surviving to age 15 who ever marry remained fairly steady at about five‐sixths of all men and seven‐eighths of all women. The average age at first marriage rose substantially: to 28.6 years for men and 26.6 years for women. The probability of a marriage ending in divorce changed little and was .437 for men and .425 for women. It is likely that no US period or cohort will ever have half of all marriages end in legal divorce, though the highest cohort may reach 47 percent. Patterns of marriage and divorce observed since 1970 show the effect that cohabitation continues to have on the American family, where it is delaying, but not replacing, marriage.     

Marital decision-making and the timing of first birth in rural China before the 1990s

Using a sample of couples drawn from the three provinces of Guangdong, Shandong, and Shaanxi, we investigated whether couples' increasing freedom to choose whom to marry influenced the timing of first birth in rural China during the four decades before the 1990s. The shortening of first-birth intervals in the period is found to be associated with the shift from arranged to free-choice marriages. The association is attributed largely to increased intimacy and coital frequency after marriage together with postponement of age at first marriage.     

The Economic Foundations of Cohabiting Couples’ Union Transitions

In recent decades, cohabitation has become an increasingly important relationship context for U.S. adults and their children, a union status characterized by high levels of instability. To understand why some cohabiting couples marry but others separate, researchers have drawn on theories emphasizing the benefits of specialization, the persistence of the male breadwinner norm, low income as a source of stress and conflict, and rising economic standards associated with marriage (the marriage bar). Because of conflicting evidence and data constraints, however, important theoretical questions remain. This study uses survival analysis with prospective monthly data from nationally representative panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation from 1996–2013 to test alternative theories of how money and work affect whether cohabiting couples marry or separate. Analyses indicate that the economic foundations of cohabiting couples’ union transitions do not lie in economic specialization or only men’s ability to be good providers. Instead, results for marriage support marriage bar theory: adjusting for couples’ absolute earnings, increases in wealth and couples’ earnings relative to a standard associated with marriage strongly predict marriage. For dissolution, couples with higher and more equal earnings are significantly less likely to separate. Findings demonstrate that within-couple earnings equality promotes stability, and between-couple inequalities in economic resources are critical in producing inequalities in couples’ relationship outcomes.     

Gender-specific labor market conditions and family formation

Slack labor market conditions for women relative to men increase the marriage rate in the USA. This paper examines the long-term consequences of such marriages. Despite the significant effect on marriage timing, labor market conditions experienced in youth do not affect the probability that a woman will marry by the age of 30. Further, labor market conditions at the time of marriage are uncorrelated with the probability of divorce, spouses?? characteristics, or the number of children. These findings suggest that labor market fluctuations induce only intertemporal adjustments for marriage timing without affecting reservation match quality or total fertility.     

Differentials in divorce in maryland

The basic data needed for measurement of the risks of termination of the legal relationship of marriage by characteristics of the marital partners are not available at this time for the United States because the national divorce registration area includes less than half the States. Special studies based on selected census data or the records of marriages and divorces occurring in one State or community have provided much of the valuable but limited information at hand. Statistics for individual States are subject to substantial bias as a consequence of inter-State migration between time of marriage and time of divorce, but they must serve as a basic data source until national reporting has improved. A record linkage study was undertaken which tied marriages occurring in the State of Maryland in 1959 with divorces occurring in the State in the years 1959–66. Relative, not actual, divorce risks by race, age at marriage, and previous marital status were calculated for couples with at least one partner an in-State resident at the time of marriage. The dissolution rate was higher for whites than for nonwhites. Marriages contracted by persons at very youthful ages and by persons who had been married previously were found subject to greater than average risks of dissolution through divorce.     

Marriage Markets and Intermarriage: Exchange in First Marriages and Remarriages

Drawing on data from the American Community Survey, we compare patterns of assortative mating in first marriages, remarriages, and mixed-order marriages. We identify a number of ascribed and achieved characteristics that are viewed as resources available for exchange, both as complements and substitutes. We apply conditional logit models to show how patterns of assortative mating among never-married and previously married persons are subject to local marriage market opportunities and constraints. The results reveal that previously married individuals “cast a wider net”: spousal pairings are more heterogamous among remarriages than among first marriages. Marital heterogamy, however, is reflected in systematic evidence of trade-offs showing that marriage order (i.e., status of being never-married) is a valued trait for exchange. Never-married persons are better positioned than previously married persons to marry more attractive marital partners, variously measured (e.g., highly educated partners). Previously married persons—especially women—are disadvantaged in the marriage market, facing demographic shortages of potential partners to marry. Marriage market constraints take demographic expression in low remarriage rates and in heterogamous patterns of mate selection in which previously married partners often substitute other valued characteristics in marriage with never-married persons.     

Marriage,divorce, and mortality: A life table analysis

The life status table, an analytical model which follows a birth cohort through life and through the never-married, presently married, widowed and divorced statuses, is developed and applied to data from four Western populations. Particular attention is given to recent marriage, remarriage, and divorce trends in California. California data for 1969 imply that 40 percent of all marriages will end in divorce, that each marrying male will marry an average of 12/3 times, and that every woman born can expect to spend 61/2 years in the divorced state. Rising divorce rates may be seen as signaling fundamental changes in both the nature of the American family and the structure of American society.     

International marriages in South Korea: The significance of nationality and ethnicity

International marriage has increased drastically in South Korea in recent years, and by 2005, 13.6 per cent of marriages involved a foreign spouse. The purpose of this study is twofold: to explore the demographic demand and supply of foreign spouses in the marriage market in South Korea, and to examine how social positions of foreign wives vary by their place in the marriage market as determined by their nationality and ethnicity. Data show that the demand for foreign spouses is particularly strong among rural never-married and urban divorced Korean men. Among foreign wives, Chinese, especially Korean Chinese, tend to marry divorced Koreans, partly because many of them have also been married before. The Korean Chinese are the most autonomous among five groups of foreign wives examined, showing the highest rates of Korean citizenship, divorce-separation, and employment. Southeast Asian women tend to marry rural never-married men, and they are the most adaptive to the host society in the way they show among the highest rates of Korean citizenship and employment (after controlling for their poor Korean proficiency and short duration in Korea). Their divorce-separation rate is the lowest regardless of such control. This study demonstrates that marriage migrants adaptation to the host society differs significantly by nationality and ethnic origin.     

The relative stability of cohabiting and marital unions for children

Children are increasingly born into cohabiting parent families, but we know little to date about the implications of this family pattern for children's lives. We examine whether children born into premarital cohabitation and first marriages experience similar rates of parental disruption, and whether marriage among cohabiting parents enhances union stability. These issues are important because past research has linked instability in family structure with lower levels of child well-being. Drawing on the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, we find that white, black and Hispanic children born to cohabiting parents experience greater levels of instability than children born to married parents. Moreover, black and Hispanic children whose cohabiting parents marry do not experience the same levels of family stability as those born to married parents; among white children, however, the marriage of cohabiting parents raises levels of family stability to that experienced by children born in marriage. The findings from this paper contribute to the debate about the benefits of marriage for children.     

Forced Marriage and Birth Outcomes

We study the impact of marriages resulting from bride kidnapping on infant birth weight. Bride kidnapping—a form of forced marriage—implies that women are abducted by men and have little choice other than to marry their kidnappers. Given this lack of choice over the spouse, we expect adverse consequences for women in such marriages. Remarkable survey data from the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan enable exploration of differential birth outcomes for women in kidnap-based and other types of marriage using both OLS and IV estimation. We find that children born to mothers in kidnap-based marriages have lower birth weight compared with children born to other mothers. The largest difference is between kidnap-based and arranged marriages: the magnitude of the birth weight loss is in the range of 2 % to 6 % of average birth weight. Our finding is one of the first statistically sound estimates of the impact of forced marriage and implies not only adverse consequences for the women involved but potentially also for their children.     

Economic analysis of same-sex marriage

This article applies the neoclassical microeconomic analysis of marriage as developed by Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker to same-sex marriage. The objective is to demonstrate that the economic analysis of marriage supports allowing same-sex marriage, and that same-sex marriages would strengthen the incentive to marry, increase the efficiency of marriage markets, provide for more children to be raised in two-parent optimum environments, and benefit states economically overall. The article concludes with an overview of the economic impact of same-sex marriages on states based on the analysis, data and fiscal information currently available from researchers and economists in the field.     

Marriage and divorce in twentieth century American cohorts

Marital status life tables have provided a basis for describing the marriage, divorce, and mortality experience of U.S. cohorts born 1888-1950. In brief, marriage occurred earlier and became more universal from the earliest cohorts to those of the late 1930s. More recent cohorts show declines in the proportion ever marrying and increases in the mean age at marriage. Period data for 1980 and cumulative cohort data by age suggest the likelihood of a continuing retreat from first marriage. Divorce has been rising steadily, with the latest cohorts indicating that 46 percent of male marriages and 42 percent of female marriages will end in divorce. Period data for males in 1980 raise the possibility that levels of divorce may have reached a peak, but cumulative cohort data by age show no such pattern. The present results are consistent with the view that a fundamental change in the traditional concept of marriage is underway. Traditional marriage involved the husband providing the wife with economic support and protection in return for her companionship and maternal services. Strong social pressures urged men and women to marry, and made the coveted services married persons provided each other difficult to obtain elsewhere. Recent economic changes have undermined the social and economic forces that maintained the institution of marriage. The U.S. economy has grown to include a large service sector in its labor force, and that growth has produced a dramatic increase in female labor force opportunities (Oppenheimer, 1970). The resultant large scale participation of women in economic activity blurs the traditional division of labor by sex, and goes to the very heart of the traditional marriage "bargain." At the same time, economic changes have weakened family ties by encouraging lower fertility, stressing achieved as opposed to ascribed characteristics, and fostering geographical mobility (Goode, 1970). The "marital union" of the past may be giving way to the "marital partnership" of the future, which will accommodate informal as well as formal marriages, less dependence between spouses, greater egalitarianism, lower fertility, and higher levels of divorce.     

Trends in age at marriage in postwar Ireland

Age at marriage in the Republic of Ireland has declined substantially from the very high level that prevailed in 1946. Between 1946 and 1969 the median age of grooms fell from 32 to 26 and of brides from 27 to 24. To some extent this is a reflection of the declining importance of the rural population but to a much greater extent it is due to the falling age at marriage among all sections of the population. Simultaneous with the decline in age at marriage, the frequency distributions of brides' and grooms' ages have become both more skewed and more peaked. Thus earlier marriage has also meant greater uniformity in age at marriage, but the phenomenon of first marriage at a fairly advanced age persists. There has been a marked trend towards greater equality between husbands' and wives' ages over the postwar period: the proportion of marriages in which there was less than five years' gap between the ages of the bride and groom rose from 49 percent in 1946 to 71 percent in 1969. The percentage of marriages in which the groom was ten or more years older than the bride has fallen from 22 to seven percent. The evidence suggests that the “marriage market” became less favourable to males (especially older males) over the period and that part of the narrowing in the gap in relative age of brides and grooms has been due to the greater willingness of younger males to marry. It also seems that changes in the age structure of the unmarried population has had an impact on the age distribution of grooms.     

Not your lucky day: romantically and numerically special wedding date divorce risks

Characteristics of couples on or about their wedding day and characteristics of weddings have been shown to predict marital outcomes. Little is known, however, about how the dates of the weddings correlate with marriage durability. Using Dutch marriage and divorce registries from 1999 to 2013, this study compares the durations of marriages that began on unusually popular wedding dates with marriages on ordinary dates. We identify several distinct types of popular dates, including Valentine’s Day and numerically special days (dates with the same or sequential number values, e.g., 9.9.99, 1.2.03), showing that on an adjusted basis, the incidence of weddings on such dates was 137–509% higher than ordinary dates. The hazard odds of divorce for these special-date weddings were 18–36% higher than ordinary-date weddings. Sorting on couples’ observable characteristics accounts for some of the higher divorce risks, but even after controlling for these characteristics, special-date weddings were more vulnerable, with 10–17% higher divorce odds compared to ordinary dates. These relationships are even stronger for couples who have not married before.