DEPRESSION, BIOLOGY, MARRIAGE AND MARITAL THERAPY

Marital therapists have an, as yet, unrecognized contribution to make to the treatment of depression. It is incumbent upon them to keep abreast of the growing literatures concerning both biological and interpersonal aspects of depression, and to inform other mental health professionals, policy makers, and depressed persons and their families as to what marital therapy has to offer. Consistent with this goal, this article provides an introductory overview of recent findings concerning the biology of depression, the relative merits of medication versus psychotherapy, and the complex relationships between marriage and depression. While there is considerable evidence that many depressions have a biological component and that medication is an efficacious way of providing symptomatic relief, this in no way contradicts findings concerning the efficacy of psychotherapy and the importance of the marital relationship in the outcome of a depressive episode.     

THERE'S MORE TO COUNTING THAN MEETS THE EYE: COMMENT ON SHORTZ ET AL.

Surveys of the literature may facilitate future scholarship by identifying important conceptual developments or recent advances in empirical research. However, we suggest that Shortz, Worthington, McCollugh, DeVries, and Morrow's (1994) conclusions regarding prominent trends in marital therapy and research suffer serious limitations based on the authors' failure to consider objective indices of either journals' influence or authors' actual impact, in addition to their exclusion of nonjournal sources and use of an arbitrary method of weighting authorship. We identify alternativeapproaches to evaluating published scholarship for use in future surveys.     

THE WEB MARRIAGE GAME,THE GENDERED SELF,AND CHINESE MODERNITY

This paper examines the web-based virtual marriage game craze that emerged in the 1990s. These online interactive games may have opened up moments of liberation and formulated new ideologies of sexual relations. However, web-based marriages only ensure a male-dominated system and conform to dominant patriarchal standards – regardless of the number of females involved. Re-enacting the rules of marriage, the cyber game is ideologically directed against free unions, mobility, promiscuity, and parafamilial fluidity – all in order to stabilize individuals for reasons of social and political control; at the same time, it promotes the acquisition of skills needed by individual players in a free market, as if paralleling the drastic re-articulation of the economy. I understand the virtual game to be a safe haven for both China and the Chinese people to imagine that they can re-strengthen and re-virilize themselves in a rapidly changing world. They co-fabricate a depthless interface or a pure semblance of a looming powerful China ruled by a male-oriented system. Just as China dreams of achieving modernity through a consistent, dependable, controlled, and ‘clean’ path, the virtual reality of the marriage game reveals a social imaginary in which contemporary Chinese people picture their social existence in an unstable transitional moment.     

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS AND THE CLERGY: A NEED FOR CLINICAL COLLABORATION, TRAINING, AND RESEARCH

This article calls for greater collaboration between clergy and marriage and family therapists. It spells out the reasons for potenial collaboration and suggests some specific ways it can occur. Marriage and family therapists acknowledge the highest rates of religious involvement of any metntal health profession, placing them in a unique position to be involved in the continuing education of clergy. There is a clear need for research to understand how marriage and family therapists and clergy can more effectively work together. The dearth of research, training, and collaboration between the two vocations is all the more unfortunate given the clear evidence of the importance of religion in the personal lives of the clients we serve.     

UNOBSERVABLE INDIVIDUAL EFFECTS, MARRIAGE AND THE EARNINGS OF YOUNG MEN

While there is compelling evidence that married men earn more than unmarried men, the source of this premium remains unsettled. Using panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men, we show that much of the premium normally attributed to marriage is associated with unobservable individual effects that are correlated with marital status and wages. To the extent there is a gain, it is purely an intercept shift and no more than 5% to 7%. Our findings cast doubt on the interpretation that marriage enhances productivity through specialization.     

TWENTY YEARS AND STILL IN THE DARK? CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ARTICLES PERTAINING TO GAY,LESBIAN, AND BISEXUAL ISSUES IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY JOURNALS

To what extent do marriage and family therapy journals address gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues and how does this coverage compare to allied fields? To answer these questions, a content analysis was conducted on articles published in the marriage and family therapy literature from 1975 to 1995. Of the 13,217 articles examined in 17 journals, only 77 (.006%) focused on gay, lesbian, and/or bisexual issues or used sexual orientation as a variable. Findings support the contention that gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues are ignored by marriage and family therapy researchers and scholars.     

USE OF THE DSM IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY PROGRAMS: CURRENT PRACTICES AND ATTITUDES

The DSM has largely become the common language of behavioral health which its authors intended. Although family systems theory resulted in part from the study of major mental illness, it later became distanced from considerations of individual psychopathology. No studies have assessed current practices and views within the field of family therapy on teaching students the use of the DSM. Member training programs of the Education and Training Council of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy were surveyed regarding their practices in teaching the DSM. Seventy-nine of 177 surveys (45%) were returned. Ninety-one percent of these programs offered training in the DSM, and in 93% of those such training was mandatory. Written comments indicated that pragmatic concerns about students being able to speak a common language with other behavioral health providers were among the primary reasons for teaching the DSM.     

DISCOUNTING,COGNITION, AND FINANCIAL AWARENESS: NEW EVIDENCE FROM A CHANGE IN THE MILITARY RETIREMENT SYSTEM

The choice given military personnel between an immediate cash payment of $30,000 or a more generous retirement pension permits us to estimate individuals' personal discount rates (PDRs). The resulting PDRs, about 7% for enlisted personnel and 2%–4.3% for officers, are precise and are correlated with a variety of other financial behaviors. The PDR is negatively related to educational attainment and the Armed Forces Qualification Test, but cognition seems to operate through channels other than being better informed; better‐informed individuals were not always measured to be more patient. (JEL D91, D14)     

RISK,MARRIAGE, AND NEOLIBERAL GOVERNANCE: Learning from the Unwillingly Excluded

Drawing from my ethnography of one prominent same‐sex marriage rights organization, I consider how activists' appropriation of a risk‐based political rationality blends utilitarian claims for equal access to self‐governance with moral assertions that posit the conjugal couple as a superior context for governing problems endemic to populations. When constructed according to risk‐based rationalities, marriage operates as a compulsory system that orients subjects to neoliberalism by promising to decrease danger for all of the “gay community,” not just same‐sex couples who marry. Articulating marriage according to a risk‐based political rationality yields a sense of urgency that makes nonconjugal intimacies and alternatives to a neoliberal ethic of care appear untenable. I add to the literature on governmentality by utilizing qualitative methods that uniquely capture the diffusion of governance from experts to social activists who are unwillingly excluded from a form of neoliberal governance.     

UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE ON FINANCIAL INVESTMENTS: THE ROLE OF BACKGROUND RISK SHARING

We investigate how changes in marital status affect financial investments and how these effects vary with background risk. We use detailed register‐based panel data and difference‐in‐differences estimators to benchmark common unobserved influences on financial investments. Women increase the fraction of wealth invested in stocks after marriage and decrease it after divorce, whereas men show the opposite behavior. Households whose joint labor income risk is reduced more by marriage have a higher increase in their exposure to risky assets in marriage. Thus income risk sharing in the household is important for financial risk taking and investment responses to marital transitions. (JEL G11, J12, J16, D14)     

CHANGE IN SPOUSE AGE DIFFERENCE AT MARRIAGE: A CHALLENGE TO TRADITIONAL FAMILY AND SEX ROLES?

We speculate that four broad societal changes (postponement of marriage by large numbers of women, dispersion of divorce throughout the life cycle, more equitable distribution of power between men and women, and wide swings in fertility) should eventually affect male-female age difference at marriage—i.e., the age-mating gradient. Examination of age difference at marriage from 1930–1980 in a central Florida county shows a trend toward increasing percentages of women marrying men younger than themselves. Data on all marriages for 1985 for this same county ( N = 7,021) indicates a continuation of this trend. Previous investigation of the age-mating gradient disclosed that age at marriage and marriage parity are related to the percentage of marriages in which the age-mating gradient is "followed.' Using the proportion marrying mates older or younger by three or more years as a conservative measure of the violation of the age-mating gradient, we find that the persons most likely to deviate from the traditional age-mating gradient were men ages 24–29, women over 30, and those persons who were marrying for the second, third, or later time. Some suggested explanations for these patterns are offered.     

FAMILY LIFE AND AMERICAN POLITICS: THE "MARRIAGE GAP" RECONSIDERED

In recent years, several writers have identified marital statusas a potentially important line of political cleavage, observingthat singles are more likely to vote Democratic than marriedvoters are. Changes in both the structure of American familiesand in the salience of "family politics" in the policy arenasuggest increased attention to the political consequences ofmarital status and family life-style. This paper contributesto advancing theory concerning the relationship between familylife and politics, and empirically evaluating several competinghypotheses concerning the so-called marriage gap in the 1972through 1988 presidential elections.     

HEALTH CARE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRAINING AND PRACTICE IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY

Americans are spending 12-14% of their income on health care, and costs are rising about 11-12% per year. These increases are fueled by many social problems and are not limited strictly to health matters. Many alternatives have been examined to limit the rapidly increasing costs. The long-term results of these efforts are likely to be a reduction in health care benefits for many and the continued development of a two-tier system of health care. This article addresses the place of mental health care in general and marriage and family therapy in particular in the emerging system. Suggestions for training and practice for the new health care system are given.     

DEPRESSION AND THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE FULL-TIME HOUSEWIFE ROLE*

This article examines the determinants of depression among a sample of 528 married, white housewives residing in the southeastern U.S. The multiple regression analysis reveals that low total family income, dissatisfaction with family life and the housewife role, and few extra-familial social contacts are significantly associated with depression. A major finding is that the impact of social contacts in reducing depression is conditioned by the housewife's age and by children's residence in the home. Younger women and those with no children living at home benefit more from extra-familial social contacts than do older women and those who have children at home. The article concludes with a discussion of the impact of the social changes of the 1970s and early 1980s on the determinants of housewives' psychological well-being.     

ACCOUNTING FOR URBAN CHINA'S RISING INCOME INEQUALITY: THE ROLES OF LABOR MARKET,HUMAN CAPITAL,AND MARRIAGE MARKET FACTORS

This paper analyzes China's rising family income inequality since the early 1990s when the urban labor market started its transformation from a centrally controlled to a market‐driven one. We document the trends in income inequality over the period of 1992–2009 using the Urban Household Survey data, and adopt the approach recently proposed by Eika et al. (2014) to decompose changes in income inequality. We find that labor market factors accounted for about three‐quarters of the overall increases in income inequality while falling marriage rate contributed the other quarter. Changes in human capital levels and marital assortativeness have not contributed to the rising inequality. (JEL D31, I26, J12)