Age at marriage and marital instability: revisiting the Becker–Landes–Michael hypothesis

An early age at first marriage is known to be associated with a high risk of divorce. Yet, it has been suggested that beyond a certain point, the relationship between age at marriage and marital instability may become positive because as unmarried women begin to hear their biological clock tick, they may settle for matches far from the optimal. Analyses based on cycles 5 and 6 of the National Surveys of Family Growth show that the relationship between age at marriage and marital instability is strongly negative up to the late 20s, with a flattening of the curve thereafter.

Religiosity as a Determinant of Educational Attainment: The Case of Conservative Protestant Women in the United States

This paper examines the role of religiosity as a determinant of the educational attainment of women raised as conservative Protestants in the United States. A human capital model based on the demand and supply of funds for investments in education is used to develop hypotheses about various causal links between religiosity and years of schooling. The hypotheses are tested using data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, a large-scale survey addressed to a representative sample of women in the United States. Among respondents raised as conservative Protestants, those who attended religious services frequently during their adolescent years are found to complete one more year of schooling than their counterparts who were less observant. The gap is smaller, but still sizeable and statistically significant, when other factors are held constant in a multivariate analysis. The empirical results are consistent with the hypothesis that positive demand-side influences are dominant and explain the observed association between religiosity and educational attainment.     

Religion and high-school graduation: a comparative analysis of patterns for white and black young women

This paper examines how two dimensions of childhood religion—affiliation and participation—are related to the probability of graduating from high school. Hypotheses derived from a human capital model are tested with data on non-Hispanic white and black women from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth. The empirical findings are generally consistent with the hypotheses, revealing sizeable differentials in the likelihood of obtaining a high-school diploma by affiliation and participation. The results suggest that the convergence of Catholics to the mainline Protestant pattern for non-Hispanic whites found here, and supported by many previous studies, has not taken place in the black population. In other respects, the relationships between religion and high-school graduation are similar for the two racial groups.

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     

Religion as a Determinant of Educational Attainment: An Economic Perspective

This paper uses data from the 1987–88 National Survey of Families and Households to study how the religion in which individuals are brought up influences the number of years of schooling that they complete. In multivariate analyses where a large number of other family background factors are held constant, significant differences by religion are uncovered: educational attainment is highest among Jews and lowest among fundamentalist Protestants, with Catholics and mainline Protestants at the center of the distribution. Various channels through which religion may influence the level of schooling are considered, within the framework of a human capital model that distinguishes between supply and demand factors. The empirical findings suggest that while demand influences are most important in explaining the high education of Jews, the relatively low schooling level of fundamentalist Protestants reflects supply and demand forces of similar strength. Analyses of schooling transitions shed light on the stages of the process at which the divergences occur.     

Religion as a determinant of marital stability

Using data from the 1987–1988 National Survey of Families and Households, this paper studies the role of the religious composition of unions as a determinant of marital stability. With the exceptions of Mormons and individuals with no religious identification, stability is found to be remarkably similar across the various types of homogamous unions. Consistent with the notion that religion is a complementary marital trait, interfaith unions have generally higher rates of dissolution than intrafaith unions. The destabilizing effect of out-marriage varies inversely with the similarity in beliefs and practices of the two religions as well as with the mutual tolerance embodied in their respective doctrines. The results also suggest that religious compatibility between spouses at the time of marriage has a large influence on marital stability, rivaling in magnitude that of age at marriage and, at least for Protestants and Catholics, dominating any adverse effects of differences in religious background.     

The Benefits from Marriage and Religion in the United States: A Comparative Analysis

In the United States, married people have better outcomes on a variety of measures of wellbeing than do single persons. People who participate in religious activities show similar advantages relative to those who have no religious involvement. This article présents a comparative analysis of these two social institutions: marriage and religion. A critical review of the literature on how religious involvement and being married affect a range of child and adult outcomes provides evidence of generally positive effects. Religion and marriage have an impact on many of the same domains of life, and there are remarkable similarities in the mechanisms through which they exert an influence.     

Child care arrangements and fertility: An analysis of two-earner households

The determinants of child care arrangements and relations between child care and fertility are examined using data on two-earner households from the 1976 National Survey of Family Growth. We find that the probability of relying on market arrangements is higher among families in which the husband's income, the wife's wage, and the level of the wife's labor supply are high; these households are likely to benefit the most from subsidies to the market forms of care that are small relative to the total cost of care (e.g. the present system of tax credits). In addition, parental education, family size, child's age, race, religion, and place of residence have important influences on the choice of child care mode. When other factors are held constant, reliance on a relative for child care is positively associated with intentions to have further children among couples with infants and preschoolers.