Matches
Lifetime years married held steady for men with a BA degree since 1960 but dropped to lowest level since 1880 for men without a BA
Christine Schwartz, Rodrigo González-Velastín & Anita Li
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 July 2023
Abstract:
Trends in life expectancy and marriage patterns work together to determine expected lifetime years married. In 1880, adult life expectancy was short and marriages were more likely to end by death than divorce. Since then, although there have been substantial life expectancy gains in adulthood, marriage has been increasingly delayed or forgone and cohabitation and divorce are far more prevalent. Whether adults today can expect to spend more or fewer years married than in the past depends on the relative magnitude of changes in mortality and marriage. We estimate trends in men’s expected lifetime years married (and in other marital statuses) from 1880 to 2019 and by bachelor’s degree (BA) status from 1960 to 2019. Our results show a rise in men’s expected lifetime years married between 1880 and the Baby Boom era and a subsequent fall. There are large and growing differences by BA status. Men with a BA have had high and relatively stable expected lifetime years married since 1960. For men without a BA, expected lifetime years married has plummeted to lows not seen among men since 1880. Cohabitation accounts for a substantial fraction, although not all, of these declines. Our results demonstrate how increasing inequality in both life expectancy and marriage patterns combine to amplify educational differences in lifetime experiences of coresidential partnerships.
Does Online Dating Challenge Gendered Divisions of Household Labor?
Gina Potarca & Jennifer Hook
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
Online dating has modified how people find and select partners. In addition to outcomes already observed (e.g., exogamy), we argue that by subverting normative dating scripts, online courtship practices may set the course for partnerships that display more egalitarian divisions of routine household labor. This may be particularly true for the married and for lower-educated women, who generally report the least egalitarian allocation of domestic work. Furthermore, we posit that the relationship between meeting context and household labor will be partially explained by the selectivity of those who search for partners online but also by mechanisms specific to online dating that allow for greater relationship quality. We use 2008–2019 German Family Panel (pairfam) data in random-effects regression models to predict sharing of routine housework among women in marital and cohabiting opposite-sex unions (N = 3305). We find that meeting online is associated with greater sharing of housework for married women with lower-education, and that the link is robust even after accounting for observed selection into online dating via entropy balancing weights. Contrary to expectations, partnership quality has no mediating effect. Much of the positive association remains unexplained, suggesting that the different ways men and women negotiate power in the dating phase in digital versus non-digital partner markets may indeed play a role in how gender is enacted later on.
Who's on (the 1040) First? Determinants and Consequences of Spouses' Name Order on Joint Returns
Emily Lin et al.
NBER Working Paper, June 2023
Abstract:
Married couples filing a joint return put the male name first 88.1% of the time in tax year 2020, down from 97.3% in 1996. The man’s name is more likely to go first the larger is the fraction of the couple’s allocable income that goes to him, and the older is the couple. Based on state averages, putting the man’s name first is strongly associated with conservative political attitudes, religiosity, and a survey-based measure of sexist attitudes. Risk-taking and tax noncompliance are both associated with the man’s name going first.
Energetic costs of testosterone in two subsistence populations
Benjamin Trumble et al.
American Journal of Human Biology, forthcoming
Methods: Total energetic expenditure (TEE) was quantified using doubly labeled water in n = 40 Tsimane forager-horticulturalists (50% male, 18–87 years) and n = 11 Hadza hunter-gatherers (100% male, 18–65 years), two populations living subsistence lifestyles, high levels of physical activity, and high infectious burden. Urinary testosterone, TEE, body composition, and physical activity were measured to assess potential physical and behavioral costs associated with a high testosterone phenotype.
Results: Endogenous male testosterone was significantly associated with energetic expenditure, controlling for fat free mass; a one standard deviation increase in testosterone is associated with the expenditure of an additional 96–240 calories per day.
Discussion: These results suggest that a high testosterone phenotype, while beneficial for male reproduction, is also energetically expensive and likely only possible to maintain in healthy males in robust condition.
Unplanned costs and benefits: Gender and spousal spillover effects of retirement on health
Lauren Newmyer, Kendal Lowrey & Yuliana Levchenko
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Method: Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effects of spousal retirement on indicators of physical and mental health in married older adults.
Results: Our results suggested that men, not women, experience the most negative spousal spillover effects of retirement on their health outcomes. We found the most support for spillover effects on spouses' physical health outcomes. Additionally, men who are not working when their spouse retires experienced the most negative health effects.
Physical and psychosocial correlates of facial attractiveness
Marco Costa & Dario Maestripieri
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research aimed to investigate whether and how facial attractiveness relates to physical (height and weight), social (relationship status), and psychological characteristics (personality traits, self-esteem, locus of control, self-evaluated social status, trait anxiety, and time perspective) in a sample of college students. In the first study, 231 participants (males and females) provided a standardized photo of their faces, self-rated their attractiveness, answered some anthropometric and demographic questions, and completed some psychological questionnaires. In a second study, the faces were evaluated for attractiveness by an external group of same-aged judges (N = 236). Attractiveness was negatively correlated with body mass index and with height (only in males). Attractive individuals reported being in a long-term romantic relationship more than others. Self-rated and/or other-rated attractiveness were positively correlated with self-reported social status, self-esteem, and past-positive time perspective, and negatively correlated with trait anxiety, neuroticism, and past-negative time perspective. The findings of this study suggest that more attractive individuals possess characteristics that favor psychological well-being and good mental health and that make them desirable and successful as social or romantic partners. Attractiveness may also be associated with adaptive cognitive biases that promote self-enhancement.
Women’s Mating Strategies and Mate Value Are Associated with Viewing Time to Facial Masculinity
Ray Garza & Jennifer Byrd-Craven
Archives of Sexual Behavior, July 2023, Pages 2143–2151
Abstract:
Sexual selection has shaped women’s preferences for ideal physical features in men that signal good health. Facial masculinity is often used as a proxy in signaling health, viability, and disease resistance, and it is thought to be attractive because it advertises heritable benefits. Preferences for facial masculinity are also associated with individual differences in one’s sociosexuality and mate value, where women oriented toward a short-term mating orientation and are of high mate value may prefer men with masculine features. The current study examined women’s sociosexuality and mate value (i.e., self-rating of overall desirability) in rating attractiveness and visual attention to facial masculinity in men’s faces using an eye-tracking task. Overall, women (N = 72) did not show any significant preferences for men with masculinized over feminized faces. However, women who scored high on sociosexuality (i.e., unrestricted sociosexuality) and mate value demonstrated increased visual attention and looking frequency to masculinized over feminized faces. The study highlights the unique role of cognitive mechanisms in visually assessing a potential mate and how individual differences in short-term mating strategies and mate value may moderate those preferences. These findings underscore the importance of examining individual differences in mate preferences research.