How Marital Search Constraints Affect the Likelihood of Marriage

waves of the National Survey of Families and Households , the authors measure the association between Wave 1 responses to 12 questions on whom respondents would be " most willing to marry " and the likelihood of marriage by Wave 2. Preliminary analysis indicated that some questions about partner preferences are more pre-dictive of marriage than others. Two hypotheses are developed to explain the pattern of effects. One is that being more willing to marry someone with characteristics that are less desirable to one's same-sex peers increases the likelihood of marriage. The second hypothesis takes into account the preferences of the opposite sex. Both men and women are most willing to marry someone with more education or who earns more than they. Supporting the second hypothesis, analyses show that men who are willing to marry women with less education or who earn less are more likely to marry. The median age at marriage has climbed steadily and steeply since the early 1970s. In 1970, the median age for women was 20.8 and for men 23.2. By 1995, both men's and women's median age at marriage had increased 3.7 years to 26.9 and 24.5, respectively (Fields & Casper, 2001). Some of this increase was due to increases in the age at school leaving (Mare & Winship, 1991). However, the age at marriage has continued to increase well past the age when the large majority of young adults are no longer in school. Economic stagnation also contributed to delayed marriages , but this is also unlikely to be a complete explanation for marriage trends inasmuch as during the late 1990s we experienced considerable economic expansion, as age at marriage continued to increase, at least for women (Fields & Casper, 2001). Although life course and economic factors are clearly major contributors to trends and differentials in marriage, other factors, which have received much less attention, are also likely to be at work. In particular, the mate selection process might have changed in ways that makes it difficult for young adults to find a good match, especially during their early 20s. One reason it might now take longer to make a good match is that women's employment has a stronger effect on a cou-ple's financial well-being than it once did. Economic potential takes longer to establish than personality traits and physical attractiveness (Oppenheimer, 1988). Another could be that men increasingly prefer women with at …