This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N 1⁄4 2,098) to examine differences in the parenting practices of four types of resident fathers, defined by their biological relationship to a focal child and their marital status with regard to the focal child’s mother. Regression results suggest that biological fathers and social fathers (i.e., stepfathers or mothers’ ...

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,098) to examine differences in the parenting practices of four types of resident fathers, defined by their biological relationship to a focal child and their marital status with regard to the focal child's mother. Regression results suggest that biological and social (i.e., stepfathers or mothers' cohabiting partner...

Following the era of the ‘golden age of marriage’ and the baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s, marriage has declined in importance, and its role as the main institution on which family relations are built has been eroded across Europe. Union formation most often takes place without a marriage. Family and living arrangements are currently heterogeneous across Europe, but all countries seem to be ma...

This paper examines the marriage tax paid by couples in 2000 using the U.S. Census data from that year. The U.S. Census data allows the study to focus on cohabiting and married couples, and ignore individuals, to overcome the inaccuracies that can result when the income of a potential spouse for an individual must be estimated. The marriage tax for couples is calculated and examined. Then, the ...

Kathryn Edin and Joanna Reed review recent research on social and economic barriers to marriage among the poor and discuss the efficacy of efforts by federal and state policymakers to promote marriage among poor unmarried couples, especially those with children, in light of these findings. Social barriers include marital aspirations and expectations, norms about childbearing, financial standard...

In many traditional societies, women's age at marriage acts simultaneously as a gateway to new family roles and the likelihood of producing offspring. However, inadequate attention has previously been given to the broader health and social implications of variability in women's marriage age for public health. Biomedical scientists have primarily been concerned with whether the onset of reproduc...

We document key facts about marriage and divorce, comparing trends through the past 150 years and outcomes across demographic groups and countries. While divorce rates have risen over the past 150 years, they have been falling for the past quarter century. Marriage rates have also been falling, but more strikingly, the importance of marriage at different points in the life cycle has changed, re...

In this paper we show how relatively small changes in the age at marriage can equilibrate the marriage market despite relatively large differences in the supply of men and women of marriageable age. In particular, a simple demographic model is developed that provides a prediction about the relationship between relative cohort size and age at marriage that differs markedly from that of the stati...

While many models have investigated the role of competitive mate selection processes in human marriage, few have addressed the potential for assortative processes to explain the observed demographics, as well as simultaneously investigating divorce. To explore the possibility that assortative mate selection processes may explain patterns of both marriage and divorce, we developed an agent-based...

History 311 Katherine Smith April 11, 2011 Between A Rock and A Hard Place: Marriage Implications for Women in the Reformation At first glance, the changing trends concerning marriage during the Reformation appear to embody a fundamental shift toward a partnership model of more equal religious status between men and women. Martin Luther, for example, argues in The Estate of Marriage that marria...