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…

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…

The relative numbers of women and men are changing dramatically in China, but the consequences of these imbalanced sex ratios have received little empirical attention. We merge data from the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey with community-level data from Chinese censuses to examine the relationship between cohort- and community-specific sex…

Trends in divorce and nonmarital childbearing suggest that the marriage market is increasingly filled with people who have been married and/or have children. This study examines the effect of personal attitudes on entrance into a union with a partner who has been previously married or has children. Using data from two waves of the National Survey…

With event history analysis, we examine the impact of gender, marital status and spouse type, and parenting at key transition points in the early careers of more than 2,000 social science Ph.D. graduates. This analysis (a) uses data from recent Ph.D. graduates; (b) disentangles the effects of marriage and parenting; and (c) observes the effects of…

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…

Never-married motherhood is associated with worse educational outcomes for children. But this association may reflect other factors that also determine family structure, rather than causal effects. We use incarceration rates for men as instrumental variables in estimating the effect of never-married motherhood on the high school dropout rate of…

This study examines M. P. Johnson's assertion that violence in marital unions is more likely to be intimate terrorism (IT) and violence in cohabiting unions is more likely to be situational couple violence (SCV). Having overcome limitations of the data on which Johnson based his assertion, the results show that cohabiting and married victims of…

Using Norway 1948-2004 as a case, I test whether changes in variables related to social integration can explain changes in suicide rates. The method is the Box-Jenkins approach to time-series analysis. Different aspects of family integration contribute significantly to the explanation of Norwegian suicide rates in this period. The estimated effect…

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…

Research on nonmarital fertility has focused almost exclusively on unmarried mothers, due in part to a lack of fertility information for men. Cycle 6 of the National Survey of Family Growth allows exploration of nonmarital fertility for both genders.The authors compare the characteristics of unmarried first-time mothers (n = 2,455) and fathers (n…

Although contributing greatly to current criminological theory and research on crime and desistance, Sampson and Laub's theory of age-graded informal social control is limited in explaining gender differences in desistance. The authors addressed this limitation by comparing how adult institutions such as marriage, family, and employment affect…

Objective: Assess how per capita expenditure on commercially prepared food as a proportion of total food expenditure varies by the sex and marital status of the head of the household. Design: Prospective cohort study, data collected by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004 Consumer Expenditure Survey. Setting: United States.…

This study compared 55 men and 78 women who had same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, 101 men and 120 women who had domestic partnerships in California, and 35 men and 86 women who had civil unions in Vermont, all in 2004. Couples were surveyed on demographic and relationship information, conflict, contact with family of origin, social support,…

Reports research on the nature of enduring sexual liaisons among homosexual men. Such relationships vary widely and may be subinstitutional adaptions to lack of community support. Gay men committed to the heterosexual world were less likely to enter enduring relationships. Open marriage is the more enduring form of gay male liaisons. (Author)