Remarriage,Delayed Marriage,and Black/White Intermarriage, 1968–1995

How have changes in marriage order and marriage timing affected 1968–1995 trends in United States Black/White intermarriage? Researchers usually follow a one-sex perspective on the effects of timing and marriage order on marital selection, arguing that delayed marriages and remarriages will be more heterogamous than early or first marriages. This paper shows that a one-sex perspective is oversimplified and that assortative marriage with respect to race depends on the interaction of both husband’s and wife’s characteristics. Marriages that match with respect to age or marriage order tend to also match with respect to race. First marriages and remarriages for both partners are more likely to be same-race marriages. Marriages that are intermarriages with respect to marriage order are more likely to also be intermarriages with respect to race. Marriages that are usual age combinations (husband and wife similar in age or husband slightly older) are also usual race combinations (husband and wife same race). Marriages that are unusual age combinations are more likely to be racial intermarriages. This paper also shows that trends in remarriage patterns do not account for the increasing trend in racial intermarriage and that trends in marriage timing have actually slowed increases in racial intermarriage.     

The Role of Spousal Income in the Wife’s Happiness

Few studies have examined spousal income in the context of happiness. This paper analyzes the Indonesia family life survey and finds a positive relationship between the husband’s income and his wife’s happiness. Specifically, a 100 % increase in the husband’s income is related to a 0.72 % point increase in his wife expressing very happy, which is about 11 % of the proportion expressing that response. Surprisingly, among the husband’s characteristics, only his income (along with health) is statistically significantly related to his wife’s happiness. This positive relationship is particularly strong among old, educated, and poor (in absolute and relative terms) urban residents.     

Husbands' and wives' relative influence on fertility decisions and outcomes

This research was supported by NICHD Center for Population Research Contract No. HD52807 and Research Scientist Development Award No. AA00002 from NIAAA to the author. The important contributions of Philip Bardsley to this research and to earlier drafts of this paper are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to Tom Day and Linda Moody Chilingar for their data analytic and statistical skills and to Cathey Heron for her assistance throughout the course of this project.When couples were in conflict about short-term fertility, wives had the same or somewhat greater influence over actual outcomes than did husbands, especially when the wife was the one who did not desire a child. Antecedent wife demographic, attitudinal and couple interactional variables had more influence on short-term fertility decisions made than did antecedent husband variables. However, inclusion of husband data as well as wife data increased discrimination between those deciding to have or not have a child.     

初婚夫妇年龄差的特点、变动趋势及分析——以北京为例

利用北京市2004～2009年的婚姻登记数据,对近年来初婚夫妇年龄差的特点和变动趋势进行考察,并探讨其影响因素。研究发现,近年来北京市初婚夫妇的平均年龄差为1.87岁,"男大女小"仍是主流的婚龄匹配模式,但由于"妻大于夫"的夫妇数量的增多和大年龄差距的"夫大于妻"的情况的减少,夫妇年龄差呈逐渐缩小的态势。女性初婚年龄的推迟、女性教育文化水平的不断提升及其与男性学历差距的缩小、城市化进程的不断推进等,均使夫妇年龄差趋于缩小。这些发现有助于我们了解当前大城市的婚配状况和发展态势,并为进一步的深入研究提供依据。     

女性健康风险冲击对配偶劳动供给的影响研究

不可预期的疾病是45岁以上中老年劳动者经常面临的健康风险冲击.个体的健康风险冲击将会对配偶的劳动供给行为带来两个方面的影响,一是配偶为了照护患病个体将会减少劳动供给;二是因患病消费增加,收入减少,配偶将会增加劳动供给.本文采用中国健康和养老追踪调查2011-2018纵向调查数据实证检验这两方面的效应.本文研究发现当女性...     

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     

Wage shocks,household labor supply,and income instability

Do married couples make joint labor supply decisions in response to each other’s wage shocks? The study on this question aids in understanding the link between the rising income instability and household insurance. Existing studies on household insurance either focus on consumption smoothing and take labor supply as a given, or only focus on wife’s labor responses to husband’s unemployment shocks. This article develops an intra-household insurance model that allows for insurance against permanent and transitory wage shocks from both partners. Estimation using the Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that wife increases labor supply in response to husband’s adverse wage shocks when both of them are working, and wife gets more nonlabor income when she is out of work. This intra-household insurance reduces earnings instability by about 2 to 9 %. These results suggest that joint labor supply decisions provide an extra smoothing effect on income instability.     

Job characteristics of spouses and their work shifts

This study builds on an earlier finding from the May 1980 Current Population Survey that one-third of full-time dual-earner couples with children in the United States include at least one spouse who works other than a regular day shift. Using the same data source, the relevance of husbands’ and wives’ job characteristics (occupation and industry) on their shift work status are considered, and the nature of the association between husbands’ and wives’ work shifts is explored. Four alternative models are initially posed and tested with log-linear analysis; these models vary in the extent to which a spouse’s shift work status is contingent upon the job characteristics of a husband or wife. None of these models fit the data. A modification of the simplest of the four models (using forward selection) is the best fitting model. It is not symmetrical: the wife’s shift is contingent upon both her occupation and industry and that of her husband, but the husband’s shift is contingent only upon his occupation and industry. There is a relationship between husband’s and wife’s shift, the direction of which depends upon the occupations of both spouses. This study demonstrates the importance of taking a “couple” perspective on shift work among married persons, and the need for models that include interaction effects.     

Factors related to the intention to have additional children in the United States: A reanalysis of data from the 1965 and 1970 national fertility studies

Reproductive intentions of white mothers with no more than three children in 1965 and in 1970 were analyzed for their stability and change with respect to such factors as parity, age of the youngest child, wife’s employment, and husband’s education. Parity and age of the youngest child were found to have a much more important effect on the intent to have additional children than were such socioeconomic variables as wife’s employment and husband’s education. Parity and the interval since the latest birth (or the age of the youngest child) were found to have a nonlinear effect and to interact in affecting the reproductive intention. This suggests a convergence to a twochild family as the threshold size and that the length of childspacing is contingent on the parity. Change during 1965–1970 in this direction was found to be greater among mothers with husbands having college or higher educations.     

Expectations of additional children by race,parity, and selected socio-economic characteristics,United States: 1967

This is a study of fertility expectations of wives in relation to selected demographic and social and economic characteristics. The data for this study were obtained from a special survey conducted in 1967 from a probability sample of 30,000 households. The analyzed data show that the number of children expected in the next five years is inversely related to parity. Because of the inverse relationship, the expectations of additional children tend to be inversely related to age at marriage of wife, number of years married, and similar temporal variables. The data show also that there exists an inverse relationship between expectations of additional children and selected socio-economic characteristics, such as education of wife, occupation, and income of husband.     

Couples’ time together: complementarities in production versus complementarities in consumption

Economists have previously suggested that gains from marriage can be generated by complementarities in production (gains from specialization and exchange) or by complementarities in consumption (gains from joint consumption of household public goods and joint time consumption). This paper uses the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) from 2003 to 2011 to test whether couples that engage in less specialization (are more similar in hours of market work) spend more time together. We find that among married couples without young children, those with a greater difference in weekly hours of work between husband and wife spend less time together on non-working weekend days. Importantly, we find that this relationship is quite symmetric between couples in which the husband works greater hours and couples in which the wife works greater hours. We do not find evidence of a relationship between specialization and couple time together among couples with young children.     

Leisure before and after parenthood

The leisure time of 117 wives and husbands was studied to determine the effect of parenthood on this time allocation. Data from both a weekday and a weekend day, both before and after the birth of the first child were analyzed. Ordinary least squares regression was used to analyze the time use model which controlled for weekend/weekday, and looked at the effects of personal characteristics such as wife's education and employment status, husband's wage rate, and number of years married as well as parental status. The time of the wife and the husband and the ratio of the wife's to husband's time were negatively related to parental status. Each personal characteristic was negatively related to the wife/husband ratio of leisure time and unrelated to husband's leisure.     

甘肃省人口婚姻意愿调查分析

本文利用问卷调查数据,分析了甘肃省居民婚姻意愿现状,主要对择偶标准、期望初婚年龄、期望夫妻年龄差和期望婚居模式四个方面进行分析。调查发现,甘肃男性择偶时较看重身体健康,甘肃女性择偶时较看重经济收入;甘肃居民的平均初婚年龄逐步提高;绝大多数居民期望婚姻中丈夫的年龄大于妻子,且倾向于男大于女1-2岁;从夫居和独立居住是普遍接受的婚居模式。虽然现代婚姻观对甘肃居民有一定影响,但是这里的婚姻观仍较传统。     

Education,health and family size as determinants of labor market activity for the poor and nonpoor

The effect of head’s and wife’s educational attainment, health and the number of the head’s dependents under 18 on the amount of time spent in the labor force by white and black male heads of both poor and nonpoor families is investigated in this paper. The technique employed is multivariate regression analysis using disaggregated data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. While educational attainment has a positive effect on the supply of labor of nonpoor heads, it has an insignificant effect on the black poor and a nonlinear effect on white poor heads. The health of head and wife has a very important effect on the ability of the poor to supply labor services while for the nonpoor the health effect is insignificant. For both the poor and nonpoor, there is a positive relationship between family size and the supply of labor. Evidence is also presented to indicate that the black husband’s and wife’s labor market activity are substitutes while they are complementary within white families.     

远嫁农村打工女的婚姻满意状况及影响因素探讨

目的：对远嫁农村打工女的婚姻满意现状进行调查,并在此基础上探讨影响婚姻满意的相关因素．为提高远嫁农村打工女的婚姻质量提供可靠的依据。方法：参照国内外学者关于婚姻质量的相关研究。编制《婚姻满意度测验》问卷。数据采用SPSS12．0软件进行统计分析处理。结论：远嫁农村打工女的婚姻满意度平均值未达到比较满意的程度,不同婚龄组的婚姻满意现状有显著性差异。婚前了解、丈夫信任、夫妻调适、夫妻沟通、丈夫帮助、性格相容、是否为经济担忧以及丈夫是否暴力与婚姻满意度呈显著相关,而气候、饮食、生活习惯、语言、双方父母认同、与娘家联系、社区接纳等对婚姻满意度没有显著影响。     

The prevalence of surgical sterilization in a suburban population

This report presents data on the prevalence of tubal ligations, vasectomies and remedial sterilizing operations among white couples, with wife aged 20–54, who subscribe to a pre-paid medical care program and live in a suburban area near San Francisco. Contraceptive operations, more than two-thirds of which were male vasectomies, were found among 23 per cent of these couples. Some form of sterilizing surgery (contraceptive or remedial) was found among 31 per cent. The prevalence of surgical sterilization, specifically vasectomies, in this population is high compared with that found across the nation or in the Western states in the 1965 National Fertility Study. Variations in the prevalence of tubal ligations and vasectomies by parity, education and religion are described. Their prevalence increases with the parity of the wife, has a marked inverse relationship with education, and is highest when neither husband nor wife is Catholic.     

Social security and conflict within the family

A husband and wife, though benefitting from marriage, may yet misappropriate some of the spouse's assets rather than let all be saved. In a Nash equilibrium, family savings may therefore be lower than what each spouse would prefer. Social Security, which is a form of forced, secure saving, can therefore increase welfare.      

The timing of falls into poverty after retirement and widowhood

A major concern of workers, even those financially prepared for retirement, is that a small risk of poverty may grow over time. Cross-sectional data showing that older cohorts have higher poverty rates substantiate this concern. Using data from the Retirement History Study, we analyze changes in the hazard of entering poverty as a cohort of elderly couples retire and age and the wives are widowed. The initial fall into poverty among those who were not poor before the husband retired is more closely linked to the event of retirement or widowhood than to the slowly eroding household income over the period of retirement and widowhood. The death of her retired husband puts a wife in economic jeopardy whether this shock occurs one year after his retirement or some years later.     

The reversal of the gender gap in education and relative divorce risks: A matter of alternatives in partner choice?

Recent evidence from the United States suggests that the reversal of the gender gap in education was associated with changes in relative divorce risks: hypogamous marriages, where the wife was more educated than the husband, used to have a higher divorce risk than hypergamous marriages, where the husband was more educated, but this difference has disappeared. One interpretation holds that this may result from cultural change, involving increasing social acceptance of hypogamy. We propose an alternative mechanism that need not presuppose cultural change: the gender-gap reversal in education has changed the availability of alternatives from which highly educated women and men can choose new partners. This may have lowered the likelihood of women leaving husbands with less education and encouraged men to leave less educated spouses. We applied an agent-based model to twelve European national marriage markets to illustrate that this could be sufficient to create a convergence in divorce risks.