Family Affairs
A Sexually Unbalanced Model of Current Account Imbalances
Qingyuan Du & Shang-Jin Wei
NBER Working Paper, May 2010
Abstract:
Large savings and current account surpluses by China and other countries are said to be a contributor to the global current account imbalances and possibly to the recent global financial crisis. This paper proposes a theory of excess savings based on a major, albeit insufficiently recognized by macroeconomists, transformation in many of these societies, namely, a steady increase in the surplus of men relative to women. We construct an OLG model with two sexes and a desire to marry. We show conditions under which an intensified competition in the marriage market can induce men to raise their savings rate, and produce a rise in the aggregate savings and current account surplus. This effect is economically significant if the biological desire to have a partner of the opposite sex is strong. A calibration of the model suggests that this factor could generate economically significant current account responses, or more than 1/2 of the actual current account imbalances observed in the data.
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Philip Wolgin & Irene Bloemraad
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Summer 2010, Pages 27-60
Abstract:
The perceived need to re-unite military families after World War II, initially addressed by ad-hoc war-brides legislation, played a key role in the reformulation of U.S. immigration policy. The large number of military spouses, especially from Asia, pushed policymakers to revise their notions of racial admissibility, thus helping to establish family re-unification as the driving force behind immigration reform. Though unnoticed at the time, the combination of wartime service, patriotism, and marriage formed an inadvertent road map for the family-centric, and ultimately racially neutral, admissions policies that would dominate U.S. immigration law after 1965. The importance of Asian war brides in shaping the contours of U.S. policy stands in even stronger relief when compared to the relative unimportance of the issue in Canada, another major participant in World War II, which also pursued immigration reform during the 1960s.
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Do Strong Family Ties Inhibit Trust?
John Ermisch & Diego Gambetta
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We provide direct evidence that people with strong family ties have a lower level of trust in strangers than people with weak family ties, and argue that this association is causal. We also investigate the mechanisms that underlie this effect, and provide evidence that these revolve around the level of outward exposure: factors that limit exposure limit subjects' experience as well as motivation to deal with strangers. Our findings are based on experimental data derived from a new design of the 'trust game' combined with panel survey data, both drawn from a sample of the British population.
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Socio-Demographic Factors Intensifying Male Mating Competition Exacerbate Male Mortality Rates
Daniel Kruger
Evolutionary Psychology, May 2010, Pages 194-204
Abstract:
Sex differences in mortality rates stem from a complex set of genetic, physiological, psychological, and social causes whose influences and interconnections are best understood in an integrative evolutionary life history framework. Although there are multiple levels of mechanisms contributing to sex based disparities in mortality rates, the intensity of male mating competition in a population may have a crucial role in shaping the level of excess male mortality. The degree of variation and skew in male reproductive success may shape the intensity of male mating competition, leading to riskier behavioral and physiological strategies. This study examines three socio-demographic factors related to variation in human male reproductive success; polygyny, economic inequality, and the population ratio of reproductively viable men to women across nations with available data. The degrees of economic inequality and polygyny explained unique portions in the sex difference in mortality rates, these predictors accounted for 53% of the variance. The population ratio of reproductively viable men to women did not explain any additional variance. These results demonstrate the association between social conditions and health outcomes in modern nations, as well as the power of an evolutionary life history framework for understanding important social issues.
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Son Targeting Fertility Behavior: Some Consequences and Determinants
Deepankar Basu & Robert de Jong
Demography, May 2010, Pages 521-536
Abstract:
This article draws out some implications of son targeting fertility behavior and studies its determinants. We demonstrate that such behavior has two notable implications at the aggregate level: (a) girls have a larger number of siblings (sibling effect), and (b) girls are born at relatively earlier parities within families (birth-order effect). Empirically testing for these effects, we find that both are present in many countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and North Africa but are absent in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Using maximum likelihood estimation, we study the effect of covariates on son targeting fertility behavior in India, a country that displays significant sibling and birth-order effects. We find that income and geographic location of families significantly affect son targeting behavior.
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Single Mothers, Single Fathers: Gender Differences in Fertility After a Nonmarital Birth
Karen Benjamin Guzzo & Sarah Hayford
Journal of Family Issues, July 2010, Pages 906-933
Abstract:
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 = 797), use event history techniques to model second-birth hazards, and examine the distribution of men's and women's second births across types of relationships. The authors' analysis is motivated by questions about how selection into nonmarital fertility relates to subsequent fertility behavior and by theories of mate selection and the "relationship" market. The authors found that unmarried mothers are more likely to have a second birth than unmarried fathers, driven largely by a higher hazard of having a noncoresidential second birth.
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The Doormat Effect: When Forgiving Erodes Self-Respect and Self-Concept Clarity
Laura Luchies, Eli Finkel, James McNulty & Madoka Kumashiro
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, May 2010, Pages 734-749
Abstract:
We build on principles from interdependence theory and evolutionary psychology to propose that forgiving bolsters one's self-respect and self-concept clarity if the perpetrator has acted in a manner that signals that the victim will be safe and valued in a continued relationship with the perpetrator but that forgiving diminishes one's self-respect and self-concept clarity if the perpetrator has not. Study 1 employed a longitudinal design to demonstrate that the association of marital forgiveness with trajectories of self-respect over the first 5 years of marriage depends on the spouse's dispositional tendency to indicate that the partner will be safe and valued (i.e., agreeableness). Studies 2 and 3 employed experimental procedures to demonstrate that the effects of forgiveness on self-respect and self-concept clarity depend on the perpetrator's event-specific indication that the victim will be safe and valued (i.e., amends). Study 4 employed a longitudinal design to demonstrate that the association of forgiveness with subsequent self-respect and self-concept clarity similarly depends on the extent to which the perpetrator has made amends. These studies reveal that, under some circumstances, forgiveness negatively impacts the self.
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Economic Dependence in Marriage and Husbands' Midlife Health: Testing Three Possible Mechanisms
Kristen Springer
Gender & Society, June 2010, Pages 378-401
Abstract:
Prior research suggests that midlife husbands have worse health when they earn less than their wives; however, the mechanism(s) for this relationship have not been evaluated. In this study, the author analyzes 1,319 heterosexual married couples from the Health and Retirement Study to explore three theoretically grounded mechanisms. The author begins by assessing two well-established family relations theories (economic resource and marital dissatisfaction) to explore the mediating effect of marital power and relationship quality. The author then draws from gender relations theory, multiple masculinities literature, and cognitive dissonance research to test the possibility of a male breadwinner mechanism. The results demonstrate that family relations theories are insufficient explanations but provide strong support for the male breadwinner mechanism. Specifically, being the secondary earner is harmful for the health of highest-income men-who historically have the strongest expectation of male breadwinning. These findings suggest that stereotypes about male breadwinning can be dangerous for men's health.
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Cognitive complexity and marital interaction in newlyweds
Benjamin Karney & Brynna Gauer
Personal Relationships, June 2010, Pages 181-200
Abstract:
Although newlyweds tend to be satisfied with their marriages, they nevertheless vary in their ability to resolve problems effectively. This study examined whether problem-solving effectiveness was associated with the complexity of spouses' thoughts about their problems. Newlyweds provided open-ended descriptions of marital problems and then engaged in interactions that were coded by independent observers. Results confirmed that the complexity of each spouse's descriptions accounted for unique variance in the quality of their discussions. Moreover, results supported a weak link effect, such that the thoughts of the least complex spouse accounted for additional variance, controlling for the main effects of each spouse. These results suggest that interventions to improve problem solving attend to both the structure and the content of partners' cognitions.
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How Does the Age Gap Between Partners Affect Their Survival?
Sven Drefahl
Demography, May 2010, Pages 313-326
Abstract:
I use hazard regression methods to examine how the age difference between spouses affects their survival. In many countries, the age difference between spouses at marriage has remained relatively stable for several decades. In Denmark, men are, on average, about three years older than the women they marry. Previous studies of the age gap between spouses with respect to mortality found that having a younger spouse is beneficial, while having an older spouse is detrimental for one's own survival. Most of the observed effects could not be explained satisfactorily until now, mainly because of methodological drawbacks and insufficiency of the data. The most common explanations refer to selection effects, caregiving in later life, and some positive psychological and sociological effects of having a younger spouse. The present study extends earlier work by using longitudinal Danish register data that include the entire history of key demographic events of the whole population from 1990 onward. Controlling for confounding factors such as education and wealth, results suggest that having a younger spouse is beneficial for men but detrimental for women, while having an older spouse is detrimental for both sexes.
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Keith Renshaw, Camila Rodrigues & Thomas Rodebaugh
Journal of Anxiety Disorders, forthcoming
Abstract:
Spouses of combat veterans with PTSD have greater psychological and marital distress than spouses of veterans without PTSD; however, few studies have examined how variables related to the spouses (e.g., cognitions) may play a role in their own distress. The current study examined spouses' perceptions of combat veterans' PTSD symptom severity in 465 spouses of veterans from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study. Spouses' perceptions of veterans' symptom severity were positively associated with spouses' psychological and marital distress; furthermore, spouses' perceptions fully mediated the effects of veterans' self-reported PTSD severity on spouses' distress. Additionally, for spouses who provided complete data with regard to their perceptions of veterans' PTSD, distress was highest when they perceived high levels of symptoms but veterans reported low levels. These results highlight the importance of interpersonal perceptions in intimate relationships and provide preliminary groundwork for future research on cognitions in spouses of combat veterans with PTSD.
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Interethnic marriage: A choice between ethnic and educational similarities
Delia Furtado & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos
Journal of Population Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores the role of assortative matching on education in explaining the relationship between schooling and ethnic endogamy. Using 2000 U.S. Census data, we find that matching on education rather than ethnicity is more important for natives than for the foreign born and for the foreign born that arrived as young children rather than as teenagers. Education does not appear to influence the marriage decisions of Asians, but matching on education plays a larger role in the decisions of whites than of Hispanics.
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Matthijs Kalmijn & Frank Van Tubergen
Demography, May 2010, Pages 459-479
Abstract:
Little is known about the validity of group-level theories of ethnic intermarriage despite the fact that such theories are often invoked in explaining why certain ethnic groups are "closed," whereas others are relatively "open." We develop a comparative perspective by analyzing the marriage choices of 94 national-origin groups in the United States, using pooled data from the Current Population Surveys, 1994-2006, and multilevel models in which individual and contextual determinants of intermarriage are included simultaneously. Our analyses show large differences in endogamy across groups. After taking compositional effects into account, we find that both structural and cultural group-level factors have significant effects on endogamy. Cultural explanations (which focus on the role of norms and preferences) play a more important role than structural explanations (which focus on meeting and mating opportunities). Our results reinforce the common but untested interpretation of endogamy in terms of group boundaries.