Making partner
Family Inequality: Diverging Patterns in Marriage, Cohabitation, and Childbearing
Shelly Lundberg, Robert Pollak & Jenna Stearns
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2016, Pages 79-102
Abstract:
Popular discussions of changes in American families over the past 60 years have revolved around the "retreat from marriage." Concern has focused on increasing levels of nonmarital childbearing, as well as falling marriage rates that stem from both increases in the age at first marriage and greater marital instability. Often lost in these discussions is the fact that the decline of marriage has coincided with a rise in cohabitation. Many "single" Americans now live with a domestic partner and a substantial fraction of "single" mothers are cohabiting, often with the child's father. The share of women who have ever cohabited has nearly doubled over the past 25 years, and the majority of nonmarital births now occur to cohabiting rather than to unpartnered mothers at all levels of education. The emergence of cohabitation as an alternative to marriage has been a key feature of the post–World War II transformation of the American family. These changes in the patterns and trajectories of family structure have a strong socioeconomic gradient. The important divide is between college graduates and others: individuals who have attended college but do not have a four-year degree have family patterns and trajectories that are very similar to those of high school graduates.
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The Gendered Division of Housework and Couples' Sexual Relationships: A Reexamination
Daniel Carlson et al.
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although contemporary couples increasingly express preferences for egalitarian unions, previous research has suggested that sexual intimacy decreases when routine housework is shared. Yet this research was conducted on data that are decades old. To update this work, the authors compared data from the 2006 Marital and Relationship Survey (MARS) and Wave 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH2), collected in 1992–1994. The results indicated change in the association between housework arrangements and sexual intimacy across surveys. Although egalitarian arrangements were associated with lower sexual frequency compared to conventional arrangements in the NSFH2, no such difference was found in the MARS. In fact, reported sexual frequency increased across surveys among egalitarian couples only. In addition, how housework was arranged mattered more for sexual satisfaction among MARS couples than NSFH2 couples. These changes appear to result from the increasing role of perceived equity as a mechanism linking the division of housework to sex.
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Pierre-Andre Chiappori et al.
Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper analyses the effect of a reform granting alimony rights to cohabiting couples in Canada. A collective household model with a matching framework predicts that changes in alimony laws would affect existing couples and couples-to-be differently. For existing couples, it benefits the intended beneficiary but, for couples not yet formed, it generates offsetting intra-household transfers and lower intra-marital allocations for her. Our empirical analyses confirm these predictions. Among couples united before the reform, obtaining the right to petition for alimony led women to lower their labor force participation but not among newly formed cohabiting couples.
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"Why Not Settle Down Already?" A Quantitative Analysis of the Delay in Marriage
Cezar Santos & David Weiss
International Economic Review, May 2016, Pages 425–452
Abstract:
A striking change in American society in the last 40 years has been the decline and delay in marriage. The fraction of young adults who have never been married increased significantly between 1970 and 2000. Idiosyncratic labor income volatility also rose. We establish a quantitatively important link between these facts. If marriage involves consumption commitments, then a rise in income volatility delays marriage. We quantitatively assess this hypothesis vis-à-vis others in the literature. Increased volatility accounts for about 20% of the observed delay in marriage and is strong relative to other mechanisms.
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Janet Chen-Lan Kuo & Kelly Raley
Journal of Family Issues, June 2016, Pages 1046-1073
Abstract:
Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97, this article investigates how work characteristics (earnings and autonomy) shape young adults’ transition to first marriage separately for men and women. The results suggest that earnings are positively associated with marriage and that this association is as strong for women as men in their mid to late 20s. Additionally, occupational autonomy — having the control over one’s own work structure — facilitates entry into first marriage for women in their mid to late 20s but, for men, occupational autonomy is not associated with marriage at these ages. These results suggest that even as women’s earnings are increasingly important for marriage, other aspects of work are also important for stable family formation.
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In the Eye of the Betrothed: Perceptual Downgrading of Attractive Alternative Romantic Partners
Shana Cole, Yaacov Trope & Emily Balcetis
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
People in monogamous relationships can experience a conflict when they interact with an attractive individual. They may have a desire to romantically pursue the new person, while wanting to be faithful to their partner. How do people manage the threat that attractive alternatives present to their relationship goals? We suggest that one way people defend their relationships against attractive individuals is by perceiving the individual as less attractive. In two studies, using a novel visual matching paradigm, we found support for a perceptual downgrading effect. People in relationships perceived threatening attractive individuals as less attractive than did single participants. The effect was exacerbated among participants who were highly satisfied with their current relationships. The studies provide evidence for a perceptual bias that emerges to protect long-term goals. We discuss the findings within the context of a broader theory of motivated perception in the service of self-control.
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Is Your Spouse More Likely to Divorce You if You Are the Older Partner?
Paula England, Paul Allison & Liana Sayer
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Abstract:
The authors assessed how the relative age of spouses affects whether men or women initiate a divorce, using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. Ex-spouses' reports of who left generally agreed, but not always, so the analysis used a latent class model embedded in an event-history model with competing risks that the woman leaves the man or the man leaves the woman. Support was not found for the hypothesis that age heterogamy itself increases the odds of divorce: Even large age differences did not make men more likely to leave younger wives, and women's exits were as likely when the marriage is homogamous as when she was older. The main conclusion is that both men and women are more likely to leave if their spouse is older than they are. The effects were stronger for men, but the gender difference in effect size was not statistically significant.
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Interjurisdictional competition and the Married Women’s Property Acts
Jayme Lemke
Public Choice, March 2016, Pages 291-313
Abstract:
Married women in the early nineteenth century United States were not permitted to own property, enter into contracts without their husband’s permission, or stand in court as independent persons. This severely limited married women’s ability to engage in formal business ventures, collect rents, administer estates, and manage bequests through wills. By the dawn of the twentieth century, legal reform in nearly every state had removed these restrictions by extending formal legal and economic rights to married women. Legal reform being by nature a public good with dispersed benefits, what forces impelled legislators to undertake the costs of action? In this paper, I argue that interjurisdictional competition between states and territories in the nineteenth century was instrumental in motivating these reforms. Two conditions are necessary for interjurisdictional competition to function: (1) law-makers must hold a vested interest in attracting population to their jurisdictions, and (2) residents must be able to actively choose between the products of different jurisdictions. Using evidence from the passage of the Married Women’s Property Acts, I find that legal reforms were adopted first and in the greatest strength in those regions in which there was active interjurisdictional competition.
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Amy Muise et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, May 2016, Pages 725-742
Abstract:
Men’s sexual overperception bias — where men tend to perceive greater sexual interest in women’s behavior than actually exists — is a well-documented finding in previous research. All of the existing research, however, has tested this effect in the context of initial encounters or for fictitious or unknown targets. No research currently exists on how people perceive their romantic partner’s sexual desire in the context of ongoing, intimate relationships. In 3 dyadic studies, we provide evidence that men in established romantic relationships err in the direction of the opposite bias and underperceive their romantic partner’s sexual desire. We also demonstrate that this underperception bias is functional (particularly for men) in that it is associated with their partner feeling more satisfied and committed to the relationship. In addition, people are particularly likely to underperceive their partner’s desire on days when they are motivated to avoid sexual rejection, and men’s underperception bias is, in part, accounted for by men’s higher general levels of sexual desire than women. The current studies extend previous findings on sexual perceptual biases and demonstrate the important role of context in men’s judgments of a partner’s sexual interest.
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Women's red clothing can increase mate-guarding from their male partner
Pavol Prokop & Adam Pazda
Personality and Individual Differences, August 2016, Pages 114–117
Abstract:
Mate guarding is a common strategy that functions to prevent individuals from engaging in extra-pair copulations. For women, wearing red clothing can be perceived by men as a signal of sexual receptivity. Thus, men may guard their mate more strongly when she is wearing red, relative to other colors. We tested this hypothesis by examining the intensity of anticipated mate-guarding behaviors in conditions where women were imagined (by their partner and themselves) to wear red or black clothing in a repeated-measures design. Results showed stronger anticipated mate-guarding behaviors from men when they imagined their partner in red, relative to black. Women were unable to predict the intensity of mate-guarding from their partner with respect to color condition. Partner satisfaction did not moderate these findings in either sex.
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Hormonal contraceptives suppress oxytocin-induced brain reward responses to the partner’s face
Dirk Scheele et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, May 2016, Pages 767-774
Abstract:
The hypothalamic peptide oxytocin (OXT) has been identified as a key modulator of pair-bonding in men, but its effects in women are still elusive. Moreover, there is substantial evidence that hormonal contraception (HC) influences partner preferences and sexual satisfaction, which constitute core domains of OXT function. We thus hypothesized that OXT effects on partner-related behavioral and neural responses could be significantly altered in women using HC. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study involving 40 pair-bonded women, 21 of whom were using HC, we investigated whether a 24-IU nasal dose of OXT would modulate brain reward responses evoked by the romantic partner’s face relative to the faces of familiar and unfamiliar people. Treatment with OXT increased the perceived attractiveness of the partner relative to other men, which was paralleled by elevated responses in reward-associated regions, including the nucleus accumbens. These effects of OXT were absent in women using HC. Our results confirm and extend previous findings in men that OXT interacts with the brain reward system to reinforce partner value representations, indicating a common OXT-dependent mechanism underlying partner attraction in both sexes. This mechanism may be disturbed in women using HC, suggesting that gonadal steroids could alter partner-specific OXT effects.
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Marriage, Markets, and Money: A Coasian Theory of Household Formation
Kenneth Burdett et al.
International Economic Review, May 2016, Pages 337–368
Abstract:
This article integrates search-based models of marriage and money. We think about households as organizations, the way Coase thinks about firms, as alternatives to markets that become more attractive when transactions costs increase. In the model, individuals consume market- and home-produced goods, and home production is facilitated by marriage. Market frictions, including taxes, search, and bargaining problems, increase the marriage propensity. The inflation tax encourages marriage because being single is cash intensive. Microdata confirm singles use cash more than married people. We use macrodata over many countries to investigate how marriage responds to inflation, taxation, and other variables.
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Life Insurance Holdings and Well-Being of Surviving Spouses
Timothy Harris & Aaron Yelowitz
University of Kentucky Working Paper, March 2016
Abstract:
Premature death of a breadwinner can have devastating financial consequences on surviving dependents. This study investigates the role of life insurance in mitigating the long-run financial consequences of spousal mortality. Using the Health and Retirement Study, we examine individuals whose spouses died during or soon after his or her peak earnings years. Using an instrumental variables approach, we find that lump-sum life insurance payouts do not significantly influence spousal well-being.
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Altruism, Cooperation, and Efficiency: Agricultural Production in Polygynous Households
Richard Akresh, Joyce Chen & Charity Moore
Economic Development and Cultural Change, forthcoming
Abstract:
Altruism toward others can inhibit cooperation by increasing the utility players expect to receive in a noncooperative equilibrium. To test this, we examine agricultural productivity in West African polygynous households. We find cooperation, as evidenced by more efficient production, is greater among co-wives than among husbands and wives. Using a game-theoretic model, we show that this outcome can arise because co-wives are less altruistic toward each other than toward their husbands. We present a variety of robustness checks, which suggest results are not driven by selection into polygyny, greater propensity for cooperation among women, or household heads enforcing others’ cooperative agreements.
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The Forecast Model of Relationship Commitment
Edward Lemay
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Four studies tested the forecast model of relationship commitment, which posits that forecasts of future relationship satisfaction determine relationship commitment and prorelationship behavior in romantic relationships independently of other known predictors and partially explain the effects of these other predictors. This model was supported in 2 cross-sectional studies, a daily report study, and a study using behavioral observation, informant, and longitudinal methods. Across these studies, forecasts of future relationship satisfaction predicted relationship commitment and prorelationship behavior during relationship conflict and partially explained the effects of relationship satisfaction, quality of alternatives, and investment size. These results suggest that representations of the future have a prominent role in interpersonal processes.
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Amy Muise, Gillian Boudreau & Natalie Rosen
Journal of Sex Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous correlational research has demonstrated an association between people’s reasons for having sex (i.e., their sexual goals) and their sexual desire and sexual and relationship satisfaction. Across two studies of people in romantic relationships (N = 396) we extend previous research and demonstrate, for the first time, that manipulating the salience of approach sexual goals (i.e., engaging in sex to pursue positive outcomes, such as enhanced intimacy) compared to avoidance sexual goals (i.e., engaging in sex to avert negative outcomes, such as a partner’s disappointment) or a control condition leads people to feel higher sexual desire for their romantic partners and to report higher sexual and relationship satisfaction. In addition, in Study 2 we demonstrate that focusing on approach sexual goals over the course of a week leads people to report more satisfying sexual experiences during that week, as well as higher desire and overall relationship satisfaction, compared to a control group. The current findings advance approach–avoidance theory by providing evidence that it is possible to manipulate people’s sexual goals and, in turn, impact their feelings of desire and satisfaction. Results are promising for the development of interventions to promote sexual and relational well-being.