This paper considers how complex family circumstances such as parental separation, custody disputes and family violence intersect with the organisational cultures and everyday practices of schools. In particular, we are concerned with the ways that coercive control -- a strategy used predominantly by men to dominate, control and oppress women in…

The United States shows striking racial and ethnic differences in marriage patterns. Compared to both white and Hispanic women, black women marry later in life, are less likely to marry at all, and have higher rates of marital instability. Kelly Raley, Megan Sweeney, and Danielle Wondra begin by reviewing common explanations for these differences,…

Examining how different phases of relationship separation effects the development of suicidal behaviors has been largely ignored in suicide studies. The few studies conducted suggest that individuals experiencing the acute phase of marital/de facto separation may be at greater risk of suicide compared with those experiencing long-term separation…

Despite speculation about an 80% divorce rate among parents of children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), very little empirical and no epidemiological research has addressed the issue of separation and divorce among this population. Data for this study was taken from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, a population-based,…

Increases in interracial marriage have been interpreted as reflecting reduced social distance among racial and ethnic groups, but little is known about the stability of interracial marriages. Using six panels of Survey of Income and Program Participation (N = 23,139 married couples), we found that interracial marriages are less stable than…

This study examined self-presentation in the online dating profiles of 241 widowed and 280 divorced individuals between 18 and 40 years old. A content analysis of open-ended user-generated profiles assessed the presence or absence of various themes, including the user's marital status, the backstory of their lost relationship, and whether they…

Objective: To follow distressed married couples for 5 years after their participation in a randomized clinical trial. Method: A total of 134 chronically and seriously distressed married couples were randomly assigned to approximately 8 months of either traditional behavioral couple therapy (TBCT; Jacobson & Margolin, 1979) or integrative…

This paper examines how marital and fertility patterns have changed along racial and educational lines for men and women. Historically, women with more education have been the least likely to marry and have children, but this marriage gap has eroded as the returns to marriage have changed. Marriage and remarriage rates have risen for women with a…

Using three waves of data from the Health and Retirement Study, I examined the association of parental divorce and remarriage with the odds that biological, adult children give personal care and financial assistance to their frail parents. The analysis included 5,099 adult children in the mother sample and 4,029 children in the father sample.…

We use data from the Voting and Registration Supplement of the Current Population Survey to explore the effects of family structure on turnout in the 2000 presidential election. Our results indicate that family structure, defined as marital status and the presence of children, has substantial consequences for turnout. Married adults are more…

Although the meanings and rates of being married, divorced, separated, never-married, and widowed have changed significantly over the past several decades, we know very little about historical trends in the relationship between marital status and health. Our analysis of pooled data from the National Health Interview Survey from 1972 to 2003 shows…

As women have entered the work force and occupational sex segregation has declined, workers experience increased contact with the opposite sex on the job. The sex mix a worker encounters on the job should affect the cost of search for alternative mates and therefore the probability of divorce. This paper uses 1990 Census data to calculate the sex…

The purpose of the study was to shed light on the potentially differing dynamics of violence against separated and divorced women by their ex-husbands and violence against married women by their current husbands. Using a nationally representative sample of 7,369 heterosexual women from Cycle 13 of Statistics Canada's General Social Survey,…

A sample of 196 participants (mean age 45.94 years, 54% women) completed inventories assessing upward and downward positive and negative social comparisons and general well-being. Widows and widowers were higher on upward negative comparisons than divorced or married persons while being lower on well-being measures of life satisfaction and…

A decade ago we published a book reporting an extensive analysis of nationwide panel data from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) project showing impacts of post-high school experiences on substance use (Bachman, Wadsworth, O'Malley, Johnston, & Schulenberg, 1997). One of the most important findings was that various categories of marital status,…