BACKGROUND Most research asks whether or not cohabitation has come to rival marriage. Little is known about the meaning of living apart together (LAT) relationships, and whether LAT is an alternative to marriage and cohabitation or a dating relationship. OBJECTIVE We examine across Europe: (1) the prevalence of LAT, (2) the reasons for LAT, and (3) the correlates of (a) LAT relationships vis-...

Age at first marriage has risen dramatically since the mid-1960s among a wide spectrum of the U.S. population. Researchers have considered many possible explanations for this trend. Few, though, have asked why individuals should want to delay marriage in the first place. One possibility is that early marriage inhibits the career development of one or both individuals in a marriage. We test this...

Building on recent European studies, we use the Survey of Income and Program Participation to provide the first broad, descriptive portrait of fertility differences within the U.S. college-going population by undergraduate field of study. We rely on multilevel event history models to investigate potential mechanisms linking field of study to delayed fertility and childlessness. We find a 10 per...

This paper takes a critical look at some practices associated with the marriage institution that militate against emancipation of women in traditional Ghanaian society. It identifies ‘child marriage’ and ‘bride wealth’ as two such practices. These also form part existing culture. The study is conducted reference to “The Anansewa”, drama written by Efua T. Sutherland, renowned female writer. exp...

Transfer payments to poor families are increasingly conditioned on work, either via wage subsidies available only to workers or via work requirements in more traditional welfare programs. Although the effects of such programs on employment are fairly well understood, relatively little is known about their effects on marriage or child well-being. We review a small number of studies that provide ...

Joint custody reforms increase the bargaining power of men within marriage and alter the allocation of resources within the household. The empirical evidence suggests that these shifts reinforce the traditional division of household labor, with both positive and negative effects. On the positive side, marriage and fertility rates rise, and male suicides and domestic violence decline. On the neg...

BACKGROUND Marriage histories are a valuable data source for investigating nuptiality. While researchers typically acknowledge the problems associated with their use, it is unknown to what extent these problems occur and how marriage analyses are affected. OBJECTIVE This paper seeks to investigate the quality of marriage histories by measuring levels of misreporting, examining the characteris...

At the intersection of behavioral and institutional studies of policy-making lie a series of questions about how elite choices affect mass public opinion. Scholars have considered how judicial decisions—especially US Supreme Court decisions—affect individuals’ support for specific policy positions. These studies yield a series of competing findings. Whereas past research uses opinion surveys to...

Married individuals weigh more on average than non-married individuals. We suggest that exiting the dating market decreases one’s incentive to maintain their appearance and leads to an increase in body weight. We hypothesize that it is most difficult for individuals to exit a traditional marriage, and easiest for individuals to exit if the couple is cohabitating but not legally married. Using a...