The marital satisfaction of differently aged couples

We investigate how the marital age gap affects the evolution of marital satisfaction over the duration of marriage using household panel data from Australia. We find that men tend to be more satisfied with younger wives and less satisfied with older wives. Interestingly, women likewise tend to be more satisfied with younger husbands and less satisfied with older husbands. Marital satisfaction declines with marital duration for both men and women in differently aged couples relative to those in similarly aged couples. These relative declines erase the initial higher levels of marital satisfaction experienced by men married to younger wives and women married to younger husbands within 6 to 10 years of marriage. A possible mechanism is that differently aged couples are less resilient to negative shocks compared to similarly aged couples, which we find some supportive evidence for.     

What Will You Do If I Say ‘I Do’?: The Effect of the Sex Ratio on Time Use within Taiwanese Married Couples

This paper uses the natural experiment of a large imbalance between men and women of marriageable age in Taiwan in the 1960s to test the hypothesis that higher sex ratios lead to husbands (wives) having a lower (higher) share of couple’s time in leisure and higher (lower) share of the couple’s total work time (employment, commuting, and housework). The sample includes 18,134 Taiwanese couples’ time diaries from 1987, 1990, and 1994. The OLS analysis finds evidence of the predicted effects of the county-level sex ratio on husbands’ and wives’ share of leisure and total work time. The county-level sex ratio’s impact on college-educated husbands’ time use is shown to be larger than the impact on non-college-educated husbands’ time use. A two-stage least square analysis controlling for possible endogeneity of county of residence returns similar findings.     

The Importance of Spousal Education for the Self-Rated Health of Married Adults in the United States

Education’s benefits for individuals’ health are well documented, but it is unclear whether health benefits also accrue from the education of others in important social relationships. We assess the extent to which individuals’ own education combines with their spouse’s education to influence self-rated health among married persons aged 25 and older in the United States (N = 337,846) with pooled data from the 1997–2010 National Health Interview Survey. Results from age- and gender-specific models revealed that own education and spouse’s education each share an inverse association with fair/poor self-rated health among married men and women. Controlling for spousal education substantially attenuated the association between individuals’ own education and fair/poor self-rated health and the reduction in this association was greater for married women than married men. The results also suggest that husbands’ education is more important for wives’ self-rated health than vice versa. Spousal education particularly was important for married women aged 45–64. Overall, the results imply that individuals’ own education and spousal education combine to influence self-rated health within marriage. The results highlight the importance of shared resources in marriage for producing health.     

Changes in fertility in Japan by region: 1920–1965

Changes in fertility for the 46 prefectures of Japan are traced from 1920 to 1965, using census and vital statistics. During the period, substantial declines were recorded in both marital-fertility levels and the proportions of women of childbearing age who were married. Regional variation is pronounced in the timing of the onset of the decline in marital fertility. Only in the most industrialized districts did marital fertility begin to fall before 1950; thereafter, sharp declines were recorded in all parts of Japan. The marriage proportion, in contrast, was falling rather steadily throughout the islands between 1920 and 1950, after which the proportion stabilized. The decline in overall fertility that occurred before 1950was caused, then, primarily by a reduction in the proportion married; only after 1950 did a decline in marital fertility become a. major factor. The time pattern of change in marital-fertility levels and proportions married for Japan differs from that observed in western Europe, where low proportions married are recorded in the earliest national censuses. Apparently a fall in proportions married in western Europe preceded by one or two centuries the major sustained declines in marital fertility that were part of the so-called demographic transition.     

Changes in childlessness in the United States: A demographic path analysis

Summary This paper describes changes in the incidence of marital childlessness among United States women since 1940 and tests a model to explain recent observed trends toward increasing childlessness. Based on U.S. Bureau of the Census sources, data are presented that indicate a substantial increase in childlessness for married women under 30 years of age since 1960. A path model is developed based on previous research on childlessness, in an attempt to explain this change. The model is composed of 1960-70 changes in (1) mean age at first marriage, (2) mean educational attainment, (3) the proportion of women in the labour force, (4) the proportion of women enrolled as students, (5) the incidence of marital disruption, and (6) the proportion of women living in urban environments. Using quarter-year age cohort data derived from the 1960 and 1970 1/100 Public Use Samples the results indicate that a substantial part of the increase in childlessness csn be explained by this model. Particularly important were increased enrolment of married women in education, labour force participation, and mean age of first marriage. The results suggest the relevance of structural changes along with birth expectation attitudes in predicting trends in childlessness in the United States.     

Economic determinants of fertility: Results from cross sectional aggregate data

Census data for areal units, SMSA’s in 1960 and cities in 1940, are used to test hypotheses and estimate parameters concerning the influence of a variety of socioeconomic variables on fertility rates of ever married white and nonwhite women aged 25–29, 30–34, 35–44, and 45–49. An economic model of the demand for children is adopted as the theoretical framework. The principal findings are that the market earnings opportunities for wives have an important negative effect on the fertility rate and that male income, representing the income of husbands, has a small but positive effect on fertility. The implication of these results is that changes in economic variables, for example, improvements in the employment opportunities and wages for wives or the establishment of a children’s allowance program, may be expected to affect fertility.     

Cohort nuptiality in England and Wales

Summary A computerized nuptiality system, called GENMAR, has been developed to investigate trends in cohort nuptiality in England and Wales. This system has five main programmes dealing with first marriage, the effects of changes in mortality on nuptiality measures, divorce, re-marriage, and marital status distribution. This paper summarizes the results of the application of the first programme to England and Wales data on first marriages of persons who were born in every single year since 1900. GENMAR-1 generated for each of these cohorts a 'complete' gross nuptiality table. The analysis shows that there have been substantial increases in the intensity of first marriage at young ages, a downward shift in the modal age at marriage, and a significant rise in the proportion ever married among women. The cohort nuptiality tables also show that the change in the nuptiality of women was due to changes in both the tempo and level of nuptiality, whereas the change for men was mainly the effect of shifts in the temporal pattern of nuptiality. There are, however, signs of a slow down of marriage among the cohorts born since the early 1950's.     

Heterosexual women's perceptions of their marriages to bisexual or homosexual men

Twenty-one heterosexual women who were or had been married to bisexual or homosexual men and had children by them responded to a 28-page questionnaire that explored their experiences as wives and mothers. All of the married women expected a lasting, monogamous marriage. Only three had partial knowledge of their husband's sexual orientation before marriage. All of them went through a painful grief reaction when they learned that their husbands had emotional or sexual, or both, attachments to other men. The suffering was aggravated by feeling deceived or stupid for not having guessed the truth. What made it difficult for them to seek support from family and friends was the fear of encountering social disapproval or ostracism. They were afraid for themselves, their husbands, and their children. At the time of the study 11 of the 21 women were still married and living with their husbands, but most of them felt unsure that the marriage would last. Ten were in transition, separated, or divorced. Only three of the still married wives had complete confidence in the future stability of their relationships. These marriages were characterized by good communications, husbands who considered themselves bisexual, and an open marriage contract whereby wives could have heterosexual affairs. Findings cannot be generalized from this small convenience sample, but will hopefully encourage further research. The writers are also soliciting more subjects to enlarge the sample.     

Family planning communication between spouses in Sri Lanka

Drawing on data from a national follow-up survey of 2310 currently married women aged 15-49 conducted in Sri Lanka in 1985, this study examines patterns of family planning communication between spouses, social and economic factors related to those patterns, and the consistency between spouses in their responses to questions about family planning attitudes and practice. The results of the analysis indicate a high degree of family planning communication between spouses in Sri Lanka. The communication, however, varied according to couples' number of living children and to wives' age, education, place of residence, religion, and work status. Multivariate logistic regression generally confirms that older women, those with little or no education, those living on tea estates, and Muslims were less likely to communicate with their husbands on family planning matters than were women in other age, education, residence, and religion categories. These findings suggest the existence of social and cultural obstacles to communication between spouses about family planning matters in Sri Lanka. Among the 577 pairs of spouses whose answers were compared for consistency, a large proportion of wives reported hearing about male contraceptive methods directly from their husbands, and a large proportion of husbands reported hearing about female methods from their wives. These findings are a reminder that both spouses are potentially important sources of information about contraception.     

U.S. women at work

Women made up 43% of the U.S. labor force in 1980, up from 29% in 1950, and 52% of all women 16 and over were working or looking for work compared to 34% in 1950. The surge in women's employment is linked to more delayed marriage, divorce, and separation, women's increased education, lower fertility, rapid growth in clerical and service jobs, inflation, and changing attitudes toward "woman's place." Employment has risen fastest among married women, especially married mothers of children under 6, 45% of whom are now in the labor force. Some 44% of employed women now work fulltime the year round, but still average only $6 for every $10 earned by men working that amount. This is partly because most women remain segregated in low paying "women's jobs" with few chances for advancement. Among fulltime workers, women college graduates earn less than male high school dropouts. Working wives were still spending 6 times more time on housework than married men in 1975 and working mothers of preschool children are also hampered by a severe lack of daycare facilities. Children of working women, however, appear to develop normally. Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action measures have improved the climate for working women but not as much as for minorities. The federal income tax and social security systems still discriminate against 2 income families. Woman's position in the U.S. labor force should eventually improve with the inroads women are making in some male-dominated occupations and gains in job experience and seniority among younger women who now tend to stay in the labor force through the years of childbearing and early childrearing, unlike women in the 1950s and 1960s.     

Men’s Migration and Women’s Fertility in Rural Mozambique

Labor migration profoundly affects households throughout rural Africa. This study looks at how men’s labor migration influences marital fertility in a context where such migration has been massive while its economic returns are increasingly uncertain. Using data from a survey of married women in southern Mozambique, we start with an event-history analysis of birth rates among women married to migrants and those married to nonmigrants. The model detects a lower birth rate among migrants’ wives, which tends to be partially compensated for by an increased birth rate upon cessation of migration. An analysis of women’s lifetime fertility shows that it decreases as the time spent in migration by their husbands accrues. When we compare reproductive intentions stated by respondents with migrant and nonmigrant husbands, we find that migrants’ wives are more likely to want another child regardless of the number of living children, but the difference is significant only for women who see migration as economically benefiting their households. Yet, such women are also significantly more likely to use modern contraception than other women. We interpret these results in light of the debate on enhancing versus disrupting effects of labor migration on families and households in contemporary developing settings.     

Fertility and economic activity of women in Guatemala city, 1964

Data from a five percent census sample reveal that in Guatemala City in 1964 economically active women, especially domestic servants, had lower cumulative fertility than inactive women, partly because larger proportions of them had never married and were childless. However, even among ever married mothers there was a substantial differential, which was not due to differences in age at first birth. With respect to all women, cross tabulation and regression analysis show that age, marital status and educational attainment were more strongly associated with fertility than was activity status, but the latter also had a significant net association. Selection for sterility was not likely. Being contrary to expectations expressed in the literature, the very low fertility of the domestics received further attention. Live-in domestics had considerably lower fertility than those who lived out, which was also the case in the United States in 1960. These data and other evidence strongly suggest that this differential is due to a widespread employer preference for single or childless women. The concept of role incompatibility is therefore inapplicable to domestic servants. These findings add to the considerable evidence showing lower fertility among economically active women in large urban places in Latin America.     

International Migration, Sex Ratios, and the Socioeconomic Outcomes of Nonmigrant Mexican Women

This article assesses whether international migration from Mexico affects the marital, fertility, schooling, and employment outcomes of the Mexican women who remain behind by exploiting variation over time as well as across Mexican states in the demographic imbalance between men and women. I construct a gauge of the relative supply of men for women of different age groups based on state-level male and female population counts and the empirically observed propensity of men of specific ages to marry women of specific ages. Using Mexican census data from 1960 through 2000, I estimate a series of models in which the dependent variable is the intercensus change in an average outcome for Mexican women measured by state and for specific age groups, and the key explanatory variable is the change in the relative supply of men to women in that state/age group. I find that the declining relative supply of males positively and significantly affects the proportion of women who have never been married as well as the proportion of women who have never had a child. In addition, states experiencing the largest declines in the relative supply of men also experience relatively large increases in female educational attainment and female employment rates. However, I find little evidence that women who do marry match to men who are younger or less educated than themselves.     

Exploring the Basis for Gender Differences in the Demand-Withdraw Pattern

During marital conflict, wives tend to demand and husbands tend to withdraw. These behaviors were historically thought to stem from essential differences between men and women. An alternative explanation implicates one form of power differences—wives desire more change and, therefore, demand; husbands desire less change and withdraw to maintain status quo. Studying same-sex as well as cross-sex couples enables an evaluation of both explanations. We examined demand-withdraw behaviors in 63 heterosexual, gay, and lesbian couples. The demand-withdraw pattern was seen regardless of type of couple. Further, for all couples, differences in the amount of change desired in partners during a conflict interaction predicted differences in demand and withdraw behaviors. These results offer further evidence that an often-observed difference in heterosexual relationships may result from social conventions that afford men greater power and women less power.     

The interaction of demand and supply and its effect on the female labour force in the United States

Abstract In both 1900 and 1940 young women and unmarried women formed the most important component of the female labour force. By 1960, however, older women and married women had replaced them. An explanation for this shift is sought in divergent trends in the demand for female labour and in the supply of the kind of female workers typical of the 1900-40 period. Three series of estimates of the demand for female labour are compared to six series of estimates of the supply of different types of women. It was found that all three series of estimates of demand showed a rising demand for female workers in the 1900 to 1960 period. However, the number of young women (those aged 18-34) and of unmarried women, aged 18-64 was actually declining in the 1940 to 1960 period. As a consequence, the supply of such women was well below our estimates of demand in 1960. The maintenance and continued expansion of the female labour force in the 1940 to 1960 period rested, therefore, on the greater utilization of married women and women over the age of 35. As a consequence, the age and marital-status composition of the female labour force has undergone considerable changes in the 1940 to 1960 period.     

Demography of the marriage market in the United States

In this paper, a new index designed to measure the relative availability of unmarried men and women is introduced. Termed the "Availability Ratio," the measure is defined as the number of suitable persons divided by the average competition. Suitability, in turn, is defined in terms of race, age and education. After various experimental tests, particular age and eeducational constraints were empirically derived from marriage data. Persons of opposite sex sharing living quarters are tested as unavailable. Estimates are also made of those presumed to be unsuitable on the basis of the % of persons aged 45-74 who have never married. Adjustments for the census undercount are given. 1980 and 1970 estimates are presented for the US population. Subsequent analyses will focus on metropolitan areas, which are more likely to function as actual marriage markets in contrast to the nation as a whole. The substantive evidence indicates that women under 25 are in a good position to find a mate, but that after this age, their prospects deteriorate rapidly. The outlook is especially poor for the more educated women at older ages, especially black women. At ages 40-49, for example, there are fewer than 3 suitable men available for every 10 college-educated women. The results suggest that the combination of preferences of women for older men (or men's tastes for younger women), combined with higher survival rates for women at older ages, results in a very unbalanced market situationn for all but the youngest cohorts of men and women.     

Wife’s employment and cumulative family size in the United States, 1970 and 1960

Using a multiple classification analysis of the data from the I percent public-use samples of the 1960 and 1970 censuses of population, it is found that the negative relationship between wives’ employment and their cumulative family size is stronger among whites than nonwhites and is strongest among women married less than 10 years, with 12 or more years of schooling, and who have no relatives living with them. Moreover, although there are many similarities in the pattern of the employment status/fertility relationship between the 1960 and 1970 data, the relationship is weaker in 1970 than in 1960.     

Residence background and fertility in Greater Bombay

Abstract The residence background of wives who migrate to metropolitan areas plays an important role in determining their fertility. From the data collected during 1966, relating to 7,872 currently married women of Greater Bombay, an attempt was made to establish differentials in marital fertility by residence background of the wives. This was categorized into three groups - non-migrants, urban migrants and rural migrants. It was observed that rural migrant wives exhibited significantly higher fertility compared with the other two groups, and this was explained by their lower educational attainment. Between the non-migrant and the urban migrant wives the latter consistently showed lower fertility for all age groups up to 40, while there was a reversal in the age group 40 and above, where non-migrants exhibited lower fertility. The urban migrant wives showed a somewhat higher level of education, most likely on account of selectivity, compared to the non-migrants. However, presence of a sizeable number of Parsee wives, characterized by a distinct urban culture and considerably lower fertility, was largely responsible for the low fertility of the non-migrant wives in the age group 40 and above. The variable that has emerged as the most influential in creating fertility differentials is education of the wife, which is shown to be negatively associated with the level of fertility. Wife's education explains to a large extent the observed fertility differentials by residence background.     

A decomposition of trends in the nonmarital fertility ratios of blacks and whites in the united states, 1960–1992*

We use a method of standardization and decomposition developed by Das Gupta to update Smith and Cutright’s analysis of demographic factors responsible for increases in the nonmarital fertility ratio (illegitimacy ratio) among blacks and whites in the United States. We create standardized rates for each year between 1960 and 1992, and consistent, exhaustive decompositions of the nonmarital fertility ratio for any interval during this period in terms of four components: (1) the age distribution of women of reproductive age, (2) the proportion of women unmarried at each age, (3) the age-specific birth rates of married women, and (4) the age-specific birth rates of unmarried women. Nonmarital fertility ratios are much higher among blacks than among whites, but both increased monotonically from 1960 to 1992. During the last 10 years, each increased by nearly 10 percentage points. Increases in the proportion of women not married, at all ages, account for the preponderance of the increase in black nonmarital fertility ratios. Increasing rates of unmarried childbearing, however, have played a role during the most recent decade (1983–1992). For whites, from 1960 until 1975, declines in marital fertility were most important in producing increases in the proportion of children born out of wedlock. Since then, these proportions have increased primarily because of increases in unmarried women s birth rates, and secondarily because of declines in the proportion of women who are married. These trends are consistent with arguments that emphasize declining economic incentives to marry and reduced access to, and acceptability of, abortion.