Increased policy and academic attention has been placed on promoting retirement savings early in the life course. This study investigates the extent to which retirement savings behavior among young persons, a population for which retirement savings is important but typically low, differs by marital status. We draw national survey data on young…

Although several factors condition mental health differences between married and never-married adults, given recent increases in marriage delay and permanent singlehood, one modifying factor--deviation from desired age at marriage--has yet to be examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N = 7,277), the author tested…

Educational expansion has led to greater diversity in the social backgrounds of college students. We ask how schooling interacts with this diversity to influence marriage formation among men and women. Relying on data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,208), we use a propensity score approach to group men and women into…

An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital…

The authors examined how ambivalence toward adult children within the same family differs between mothers and fathers and whether patterns of maternal and paternal ambivalence can be explained by the same set of predictors. Using data collected in the Within-Family Differences Study, they compared older married mothers' and fathers' (N = 129)…

Children in traditional families (i.e., married, 2 biological parents) tend to do better than their peers in nontraditional families. An exception to this pattern appears to be children from same-sex parent families. Children with lesbian mothers or gay fathers do not exhibit the poorer outcomes typically associated with nontraditional families.…

This study contributes to the emerging demographic literature on same-sex couples by comparing the level and correlates of union stability among 4 types of couples: (a) male same-sex cohabitation, (b) female same-sex cohabitation, (c) different-sex cohabitation, and (d) different-sex marriage. The author analyzed data from 2 British birth cohort…

Are cohabiters different than married couples who cohabited before marriage? This study used the 2002 wave of the National Survey of Families and Households to determine how work behavior might differ for 4 relationship types: (a) cohabiters with uncertain marriage plans, (b) cohabiters with definite marriage plans, (c) premarital cohabiters who…

The authors investigated variations in reciprocity and the impact of reciprocity on well-being in a West African society. They hypothesized that household size and income diversity encourage reciprocity, which in turn enhances subjective well-being. In empirical testing of these hypotheses the authors used the data of the Core Welfare Indicators…

This research explored how older people describe their paths to late-life childlessness. In-depth accounts from 38 childless older people, age 63-93, highlight the complex journeys and diverse meanings of childlessness for male and female participants, single and partnered, including some who had outlived children. Positioning theory is used to…

This research investigates whether first sexual intercourse during adolescence is associated with increased risk of first marriage dissolution and tests whether the results are consistent with causal or selection explanations. Drawing on a sample of 3,793 ever-married women from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, this study estimated…

Numerous studies have shown that married women and men experience the lowest mortality. Legal marital status, however, does not necessarily reflect today's social reality because individuals are classified as never married, widowed, or divorced even when they are living with a partner. Denmark is one of the forerunners of developments in…

We investigate which partner of a 2-gender couple moves out after separation. We test hypotheses on the impact of differences between the partners in the costs of moving out and resources, using data from the Divorce in the Netherlands survey (N = 1,537 ex-couples who separated between 1972 and 1998). Ex-partners initiating the separation were…

I examine the contested finding that men and women engage in gender performance through housework. Prior scholarship has found a curvilinear association between earnings share and housework that has been interpreted as evidence of gender performance. I reexamine these findings by conducting the first such analysis to use high-quality time diary…

This study is the first to explore the relationship between cohabitation and U.S. adult mortality using a nationally representative sample. Using data from the National Health Interview Survey-Longitudinal Mortality Follow-up files 1997-2004 (N = 193,851), the authors found that divorced, widowed, and never-married White men had higher mortality…