While it is well known that the widowed suffer increased mortality risks, the mechanism of this survival disadvantage is still under investigation. In this article, we examine the quality of health care as a possible link between widowhood and mortality using a unique data set of 475,313 elderly couples who were followed up for up to nine years. We address whether the transition to widowhood af...

This study was to examine the effect of triangulation on depression in children. Clinical samples and nonclinical samples were taken from Utah and Illinois. Families were assessed for marital satisfaction and stability, family triangulation, and children’s depression levels by the Marital Adjustment Test, Marital Status Inventory, Nuclear Family Triangulation, and Children’s Depression Inventor...

This longitudinal study investigated marital satisfaction trajectories across the first 2 years of parenthood. Data were collected from new parents (couples) 6 weeks before the birth of their first child, and then at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postpartum. Growth curve models revealed two key findings. First, for highly anxious individuals, satisfaction was lower or declined when they perceived th...

participants at Hunter College for comments and conversations that have improved this paper. We are responsible for any remaining errors. Abstract We investigate the effect of house price changes on MSA-level divorce rates using data for 1991-2010 from the Current Population Survey and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Our findings suggest that changing house prices significantly affect divor...

Social Security retirement benefits in the United States (US) reflect marital histories and lifetime earnings of current and former married couples. Focusing on the link between marital history and benefit eligibility, this article examines women's marital patterns over the past two decades. Using the 1990 and 2009 Marital History Modules to the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Part...

Although there is substantial evidence linking marital quality to physical health, few studies have been longitudinal. This study examined data from the Marital Instability Over the Life Course Study; 1,681 married individuals followed for 20 years were included in these analyses. In order to control for life course effects, participants were divided into 2 cohorts: early life and midlife. On t...

The spectacularly early decline of French fertility is one of the great puzzles of economic history. There are no convincing explanations for why France entered a fertility transition over a century before anywhere else in the world. This analysis links highly detailed individual level fertility life histories to wealth at death data for four rural villages in transition-era France, 1750-1850. ...

Few events have the potential to transform a marriage as much as the arrival of a child. In a short span of time, the profound feelings of joy and awe that parents experience when bringing a new life into the world combine with unfamiliar but urgent child-care tasks, uncharted negotiations between sleep-deprived partners, reductions in leisure time, changes in work patterns, fluctuations in moo...