Does Marriage Discourage Female Labor Force Participation? Empirical Evidence from Thailand

Abstract

In labor supply theory, marriage can be one of the obstacles making it less likely for a woman to participate in the labor market. However, the relationship between marriage and a female’s working outside the home can vary according to a country’s stage of economic development. This paper therefore aims to investigate the impact of marital status on labor force participation of women in developing countries by using Thailand as a case study. Using sex ratios at the provincial level as an instrumental variable for marital status gives different results from previous empirical research focusing on developed countries. Married women in a developing country like Thailand are more likely to participate in the labor market and work more hours than are unmarried women, especially those who are younger, less educated, not household heads, and with fewer family members to care for. Therefore, policy recommendations for developing countries should aim to support those young and less educated married (and poor) female workers by including extended maternity leave, flexibility of working hours, and establishment of childcare facilities in the workplace, including child allowances for married women who have children.     

Socioeconomic,sociodemographic and attitudinal correlates of the tempo of divorce

The association between sociodemographic, demographic, and attitudinal measures and the timing or tempo of marital dissolution over a 14-year time span is examined. Separation is considered equivalent to divorce. Early and late divorce are differentiated by whether the event occurred before or after the average number of years married prior to divorce. Data were obtained on husbands and wives within childbearing years (up to 39 years) in the 1st years of the 1st marriage. A random stratified sample of 610 couples was drawn from records of marriages in a midwestern county between 1972-77. Reinterviews were conducted on 544 couples in April 1985. socioeconomic variables included educational attainment, occupational prestige, wife's employment status, wife's future work plans, husband's attitude to wife's future work plans, total family income, and level of satisfaction with current financial status. Demographic variables are age at marriage, number of children in 1985, marital duration, and desired family size. Attitudinal items were religiosity and gender role orientations (traditionalism, modernism, egalitarianism). Exposure to divorce was not equitably distributed for the 108 who divorced, but this was not statistically significant. The results indicate that those divorced earlier were wives who worked outside the home, worked at more prestigious jobs, planned to be employed throughout married life, and whose father had a higher level of educational attainment. This finding is not consistent with prior research which has shown that favorable socioeconomic conditions lower the probability of divorce. The timing of divorce was affected by the presence of children. Those married at younger ages divorced earlier and couples with children delayed divorcing longer than couples without children. These findings were consistent with earlier research. Catholic wives delayed divorce longer than non-Catholic wives. Males lower in sexual satisfaction divorced earlier. Divorce was postponed longer for husbands with traditional values and wives who had higher scores on egalitarianism. Wives with scores on modernism had earlier divorces than wives scoring lower on modernism. The tempo of divorce was in multiple classification analysis predicted best by wife's employment status and number of children. Cross-classification was not possible.     

LABOR SUPPLY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MARRIED HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN AND PARTNERED LESBIANS: A SEMI‐PARAMETRIC DECOMPOSITION APPROACH

Using 2000 U.S. Census data we illustrate the importance of accounting for household specialization in lesbian couples when examining labor supply differences between heterosexual married and partnered lesbian women. Specifically, we find the labor supply gap is substantially larger between married women and partnered lesbian women who specialize in market production (primary earners) than between married women and partnered lesbian women who specialize in household production (secondary earners). Applying a semi‐parametric decomposition approach we show that controlling for children significantly reduces the gap between married women and secondary lesbian earners both in terms of the decision to remain attached to the labor market (the extensive margin) and annual hours of work conditional on working (the intensive margin). Further, the effect of controlling for children primarily reduces the percentage of secondary lesbian earners working extremely high annual hours. (JEL J15, J16, J22)     

Work Choices of Mothers in Families with Children with Disabilities

This study used a sample of single and married mothers with children under the age of 20 drawn from the 1992 and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine one facet of the economic implications a child with disabilities brings to a family. Specifically, the choice of women with children to work full time, part time, or not at all was estimated as a function of individual and family characteristics, including the number and ages of children with disabilities. The presence of young children, with or without disabilities, has a significant negative influence on the work choice of both single and married mothers. However, once children enter elementary school, single mothers with disabled or nondisabled children and married mothers with nondisabled children are significantly more likely to enter the labor market or increase their labor market hours than are married mothers of school‐age children with disabilities.     

Statewide Divorce Rates and Wives' Participation in the Labor Market

An ecological analysis of the relationship between the participation of married women in the labor market and divorce rates was carried out on the continental states of the U.S. for 1980. It was found that the higher the proportion of married women working full-time and the lower proportion of married women working part-time the higher the divorce rate of the state. Reasons for this result were discussed.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DIVORCE DECISIONS

This paper studies the linkage between the expected financial consequences of divorce and the decision to become divorced. A standard choice-theoretic model predicts that the probability of divorce will be negatively related to the financial opportunity cost of divorce. This opportunity cost is measured as the difference in the present values of the future income streams that a married woman might expect if she were to stay married rather than become divorced. Our empirical results indicate that the expected short-term financial consequences are a better predictor of subsequent divorce than are the longer-term consequences.     

Till Porn Do Us Part? A Longitudinal Examination of Pornography Use and Divorce

As pornography use becomes more commonplace in the United States, and increasingly so among younger cohorts, a growing literature is considering its potential connection to key social and cultural institutions. The current study examined the relationship between pornography use and one such institution: marriage. We drew on three-wave longitudinal data from 2006 to 2014 General Social Survey panel studies to determine whether married Americans’ pornography use predicted their likelihood of divorce over time and under what social conditions. We employed a doubly robust strategy that combines entropy balancing with logistic regression models. We found that the probability of divorce roughly doubled for married Americans who began pornography use between survey waves (N = 2,120; odds ratio = 2.19), and that this relationship held for both women and men. Conversely, discontinuing pornography use between survey waves was associated with a lower probability of divorce, but only for women. Additional analyses also showed that the association between beginning pornography use and the probability of divorce was particularly strong among younger Americans, those who were less religious, and those who reported greater initial marital happiness. We conclude by discussing data limitations, considering potential intervening mechanisms and the possibility of reverse causation, and outlining implications for future research.     

Marriage and the economic status of women with children

Marriage is positively correlated with income, and women with children are much less likely to be in poverty if they are married. Selection into marriage makes it difficult to assess whether these correlations represent a causal effect of marriage. One instrument for marriage proposed in past research is the gender of a woman’s first child. We find that women who have a boy first are about 0.33 percentage points more likely to be married at any point in time. This effect operates through both increasing the probability that unmarried mothers marry the child’s father and reducing the probability of divorce. We also find that women whose first child is a boy experience higher levels of family income and are less likely to receive welfare income, be below the poverty line, and receive food stamps. Estimates using child gender as an instrumental variable for marriage suggest that marriage plays a large causal role in improving the economic well-being of women with children and that these effects are largest among women at the lower end of the income distribution.     

Marriage: for love,for money…and for time?

Married couples enjoy meaningful economies in time, often choosing to specialize where one spouse focuses on market work and the other on household production and childcare. Using data from the American Time Use Survey 2003–2008, I estimate significant marriage effects upon time use. Most married women gain 33–34 min of leisure each weekday when compared to single women. While marriage does not lead to more leisure for husbands, it allows them to allocate time away from home and towards market work. Lower-income couples work more at home and for pay, and spend less time in leisure than their single counterparts. The temporal and financial gains from marriage for most people are inconsistent with its declining prevalence.     

Correlates and Consequences of Divorce in an Iranian City

Abstract

This papcr cxatnines the recent trends in divorcc in Iran and analyzes data about the determinants and consequenccs of divorce drawn from a divorce survey in a large urban center. Rcvicw of trends in divorce for the last three decades in Iran suggests that the divorce rate has been changing in response to social and legal changes and eight years of war. Urban background, education, work status of women, and religiosity are significantly related to divorce. Women who are divorced, comparcd to married women, suffer economically and expcricnce more psychological problems. Children of divorced women show indications of a higher level of etnotional disturbance and delinquency.     

Market hours,household work,child care,and wage rates of partners: an empirical analysis

The aim of this paper is to provide new evidence on the effect of partners’ wages on partners’ allocation of time. Earlier studies concluded that wage rates are an important determinant of partners’ hours of market and non-market work and also that house work may lower married women’s wage rates. However, the bulk of earlier literature in this area failed to account for the endogeneity of wages or the simultaneity of partners’ time allocation choices. Here we take a reduced form approach and specify a ten simultaneous equations model of wage rates, employment and hours of market work, house work and childcare of parents. Non-participants are included in the model. We exploit a rich time use dataset for France to estimate the model. We find that the own wage affects positively own market hours and negatively own house work and childcare hours. The wage of the father has a significantly negative effect on the mother’s market hours while her wage rate has a significantly positive effect on his house work hours.     

Marriage as a commitment device

Non-cooperative couples are inefficient. Cooperation raises the utility of both parents, and of each child, but does not guarantee efficiency. In the presence of credit rationing, a cooperative equilibrium may not exist outside marriage, because the main earner cannot credibly promise to compensate the main childcarer at some future date, and may not be able or willing to do so at front. By allowing the main childcarer to credibly threaten divorce if the main earner does not deliver the promised compensation when the time comes, marriage makes that promise credible, and thus increases the probability that a cooperative equilibrium will exist. In a separate-property jurisdiction, a reduction in the cost or difficulty of obtaining a divorce increases married women??s participation in the labour market. In a community-property one, it has no such effect.     

Women's Education,Marital Violence,and Divorce: A Social Exchange Perspective

Drawing on social exchange theories, the authors hypothesized that educated women are more likely than uneducated women to leave violent marriages and suggested that this pattern offsets the negative education–divorce association commonly found in the United States. They tested these hypotheses using 2 waves of young adult data on 914 married women from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The evidence suggests that the negative relationship between women's education and divorce is weaker when marriages involve abuse than when they do not. The authors observed a similar pattern when they examined the association of women's proportional earnings and divorce, controlling for education. Supplementary analyses suggested that marital satisfaction explains some of the association among women's resources, victimization, and divorce but that marital violence continues to be a significant moderator of the education–divorce association. In sum, education appears to benefit women by both maintaining stable marriages and dissolving violent ones.     

Married Couples’ Time Allocation Decisions and Marital Stability

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), 1985–1992, are the data used to simultaneously examine the role of family stability to both market and household time allocation for both spouses and the role of couples’ time allocation in their probability of divorce. The study found that increases in the probabilities of divorce were only significantly correlated with decreases in wife’s housework time. It was also found by the study that increases in the husband’s market work hours and increases in the wife’s household work hours had negative effects on the probability of divorce.

Interactions Between Cultural and Economic Determinants of Divorce in The Netherlands

This study examines the relationship between gendered family roles and divorce in The Netherlands. Cultural and economic aspects of this relationship are distinguished. Economic hypotheses argue that the likelihood of divorce is increased if women work for pay and have attractive labor market resources. Cultural hypotheses argue that divorce chances are increased if women adhere to emancipatory norms, independent of their labor market positions. An event‐history analysis of a life‐history survey among 1,289 Dutch women reveals evidence for both hypotheses. Interaction effects are found as well: The protective effect of a traditional division of paid labor is only present among couples in which wives have traditional gender attitudes. Hence, the validity of economic explanations of divorce is conditional on cultural values.     

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.     

Limited Access: Disparities in Flexible Work Schedules and Work-at-home

This research tests predictions regarding potential disparities among the employed by personal characteristics in the ability to vary the starting and ending times of their workday and engage in work from home. Women and African-Americans possess less access to flexible work schedules, even when controlling for most job characteristics. Married men have more access, but only if they are parents, and mothers only if they have pre-school-age children. Workers with part-time or long hours gain far greater access. Work-at-home is more common among women, the married and parents-thus, relatively more reflective of family demands. The results suggest where public and organizational policies could be focused to spread flexible work arrangements more toward those who both most value it and lack it.     

A consumer theory with competitive markets for work in marriage

The theory presented here aims at explaining individual consumer behavior inside marriage and prior to marriage. It is a New Home Economics (NHE) model in the sense that it assumes the existence of household production. It is an intra-household bargaining model in the sense that it assumes that husbands and wives typically have different economic interests with respect to marriage, and they try to negotiate arrangements that suit them best. The more resources they have, the more they may obtain results that favor them rather than their spouse. It is a market theory similar to standard labor market theory. This theory throws light on gender differences in demand for commercial goods that have home-produced substitutes. This theory leads to an explanation why women are charged more for dry-cleaning. The theory can also explain differences in demand for different products. Predictions include that of a sex ratio effect on consumption. For example, it is predicted that in countries with more emigration of men than women, women will be expected to make higher contributions to newly weds’ costs of housing. It is also predicted that there will be compensating differentials in marriage. For instance, women married to considerably older men are expected to have relatively more control over the use the couple’s income than women married to men who are close to their own age. In contrast to bargaining theory, the insights presented here apply to both married individuals and to those who anticipate being married in the future.     

Marital Status,Marital History,Body Weight,and Obesity

Marital status and marital history are associated with health. Marital history can be represented by the marital trajectory components of timing, transitions, sequence, and duration. We examined whether marital trajectory components add insights beyond marital status in predicting body weight in a retrospective analysis of 3,011 adults. Marital status findings revealed that married men were heavier than separated/divorced men, and never married women were heavier and more often obese than married women. Marital history findings showed that after adjusting for marital status, trajectory measures of age at first marriage, second marriage or second divorce, experiencing widowhood, and duration of separation/divorce were not clearly associated with body weight or obesity. Body weight and obesity appear to be associated with current marital status but not marital history.     

Homemaking Practices and Evening Meals in Married and Separated Families with Young Children

A survey of 18 married and 18 separated or divorced mothers of preschoolers provided data for comparing their roles as homemakers and parents. In married families, the father was frequently absent from evening meals eaten at home, but mothers ate with their children with similar frequency. The two groups were similar in many aspects of homemaking practices and attitudes, but there were significant differences in the relationships involving mothers, children, and food. Families headed by separated or divorced women ate out more frequently and were more likely to eat in fast-food restaurants compared to intact families. Separated and divorced mothers were more likely toreport eating problems and to use food as a reward for good behavior with their preschoolers, while married women were more likely to consider table manners a peoblem. Records from seven consecutive evening meals showed no difference in the frequency of serving 29 foods from a 36-item food list.