The Contemporary Marriage and Fertility Revolutions in the West the Explanations Provided by Australian Participants

The last half century has witnessed both in Australia, and elsewhere in the West, first a “baby boom” (and marriage boom) and then a “baby bust” (and marriage bust). Economists, demographers, sociologists and social historians, especially in America, have developed theories to explain these phenomena. Presented to the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, New Orleans, 21–23 April 1988.     

Wives who outearn their husbands: A transitory or persistent phenomenon for couples?

In what percentage of married couples do wives outearn their husbands, and, moreover, how persistent are these patterns? This study systematically examined variation in point-in-time estimates across alternative measures of earnings, definitions of types of couples, and data sources and gauged the persistence of these patterns for a period of three calendar years using data from the 2000 Current Population Survey and the 1996–2000 Survey of Income and Program Participation. Among the findings are that in 19% to 30% of all married couples, wives have higher earnings than their husbands. In 60% of such couples, this arrangement persists over the three-year period; for the rest, this arrangement is transitory.     

Perceived Racial Discrimination as a Predictor of Health Behaviors: the Moderating Role of Gender

Perceived racial discrimination (PRD) has been implicated in undermining the mental and physical health of racial/ethnic minorities (e.g., Williams et al. in Am J Public Health 93:200–208, 2003; Wong et al. in J Pers 71:1197–1232, 2003). Researchers have begun to explore the indirect role of health behaviors as one factor in helping to explain this relationship. The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between PRD and a wide range of health behaviors using a prospective, longitudinal design and to explore the role of gender in moderating these relationships. Using data from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study, we examined the relationship between adolescent PRD (accumulated across ages 14–21) and health behaviors (i.e., diet, substance use, exercise) at age 30 in a sample of middle-class black men and women. Using structural equation modeling, results revealed that more cumulative PRD during adolescence was associated with less healthy eating, more substance use (among men), and more exercise (among women) in young adulthood. Implications of these findings for understanding the role of health behaviors in explaining the link between PRD and health outcomes are considered.     

Family reunification in a social structural context

Using a multi-level discrete time hazard model, this study examines whether county level social structural characteristics affect the rate of family reunification, after adjusting for child attributes. Children who were placed in foster care for the first time during 2004 from 945 counties in 17 states are included. The county level characteristic examined included urbanicity, racial composition, percentage of female-headed households, proportion of households in poverty and foster care placement rate. The results show that with the exception of poverty, the other contextual variables affect family reunification, although the effects are most pronounced within the first six months of foster care placement.     

Women on boards of nonprofits: What difference do they make?

In this article, the authors explore the impact of women on nonprofit boards. From a sociological perspective, they look at the actual proportion of women on boards and, from a more psychological perspective, at the sex of the chief executive officers in order to examine the impact of these variables on board effectiveness, structure, and process. The study results, based on data from a cross section of Canadian nonprofits, indicate that as the percentage of women on a board increases, the dynamics of the board are significantly affected.     

Women's experience of power within marriage: an inexplicable phenomenon?

Relatively little attention has been paid within mainstream sociology to the examination of marital power, although there is considerable disenchantment with measures of it based on replies to questions about who makes a range of decisions. Marxists and feminists have stressed the importance of economic dependence as an element in understanding power relationship within marriage, although there has been little empirical work to support/undermine their views. This paper draws on material from 60 in-depth interviews with predominantly white married women aged 20–42 years old whose oldest child was at most 15 years and who were randomly selected from general practice medical registers in North London. The paper looks at three aspects of their marital power position: first, their experience of powerfulness/powerlessness; second, their level and pattern of emotional dependence on their husband (in the context of Waller's and Hill's (1951)‘principle of least interest’); and, third, their absolute and relative levels of structural power resources (such as education, occupation, etc.) It shows that although the overwhelming majority of the respondents were partially if not totally financially dependent on their husband, only roughly one third felt powerless within their marriage. The importance of relational and structural sources of power in influencing these feelings is explored, the paper arguing that such feelings are less influenced by the respondents’ own structural resources than by factors associated with the husband's economic position and his role within the family. Hence, paradoxically, although the respondents feel less powerless than they ‘should’ in terms of their level of economic dependence, the factors associated with variation in feelings of powerlessness highlight the constrained nature of their situation.