A study of Irish county marriage rates, 1961-1966

Abstract This article considers a group of models of Irish county marriage rates. Some of these models account for the major part of the inter-county variation in male and female marriage rates in terms of the influence of a limited number of socio-economic variables. The sex ratio of the unmarried population in the counties plays a key role in all of the models: the female marriage rate tends to be raised, and the male rate lowered, by a high ratio of males to females in the unmarried population. Male rates appear to increase under more favourable economic conditions, as measured by county income per person, while female rates appear to be lowered by increased female participation in the labour force. In addition to these separate influences on male and female rates, a recursive model in which there is a one-way influence from male to female rates, and a simultaneous-equation model, in which male and female rates are fully interdependent, were tested. The performance of the tested recursive model was particularly satisfactory.