Assortative mating fundamentally shapes the characteristics of families and the reproduction of populations. It organizes people into families and determines the characteristics of parents. In this article, I review the literature on the causes and consequences of trends and variation in assortative mating. Explanations for why assortative mating varies have been dominated by modernization theory, but perspectives emphasizing economic inequality and gender inequality have gained momentum in recent years. Underexplored is how changes in the structure of search have affected mate selection. The idea that assortative mating affects inequality and population composition is one of the primary motivations for its study but, until recently, has rarely been tested empirically. I review the literature on the consequences of assortative mating for (a) inequality within generations, (b) inequality between generations, (c) long-run population change, and (d) relationship quality and dissolution. I conclude with sugge...

Trends and Variation in Assortative Mating: Causes and Consequences

The question of what factors contribute to the stability of coresidential partnerships has attracted the attention of many social scientists. This study summarizes recent research on the determinants of union dissolution within a set of substantive themes. Special emphasis is placed on the past two decades of research. European as well as American contributions are considered. 1. Introduction In this paper, we offer a brief review of research into the social, demographic, and economic factors that contribute to the dissolution of coresidential relationships. In contemporary industrialized societies, the break-up of a coresidential relationship is an increasingly common life course event (Andersson and Philipov 2002), and it is consequential both for adults and children (Amato 2000). Our focus is chiefly on demographic research on antecedents of separation (moving apart) and divorce. While many of the studies to date have concentrated on the dissolution of marriages rather than of cohabiting unions-mainly because there is less data on unmarried couples who live together-a larger body of literature on cohabiting unions is emerging. A related line of research focusing on more subjective and psychological factors, such as union quality and marital interactions, will not be summarized in this paper. Very good reviews of these research areas are available (Bradbury, Fincham, and Beach 2000; Gottman and Notarius 2000). Moreover, the present summary is, for the most part, restricted to studies published in international peer-reviewed journals. The most recent article that provided a broad summary of dissolution determinants covered the period up to the year 1990, and focused on American contributions (White 1990). Indeed, much of what we then knew about factors that influence the propensity to divorce was based on American research. In recent decades, research on the antecedents of union dissolution has expanded significantly, especially in Europe. We exclude studies that primarily relate to less developed countries. Most of this research is, either explicitly or implicitly, based on a micro-level theory of individual choice and couple-level bargaining. The early work by Gary Becker and colleagues (Becker, Landes, and Michael 1977) assumed a unitary household utility function, while later economic theory has more explicitly acknowledged that men and women may have differing incentives/disincentives (Lundberg and Pollak 1996). Meanwhile, sociologists have formulated theories explicitly including structural and cultural constraints (Levinger 1976, Brines and Joyner 1999, South, Trent, and Shen 2001). Whether it is completely tacit or it is formulated in terms of either microeconomics or rational actor-based sociology, there seems to be an agreement that the dissolution process involves some variant of utility maximization. This has been called the utilitarian synthesis by Brines and Joyner (1999). To augment the idea of utility maximization, various additional theoretical ideas have been invoked by researchers. These ideas connect the partners with, for example, their childhood experiences, their own union and childbearing histories, the resources brought into the partnership, their integration into labour markets, the organization of domestic life, and the social surroundings. The paper is organized in sections, with each covering one strand of research on factors related to union dissolution. In some subfields, there is plenty of research; whereas in others, our knowledge is rather sparse. A brief conclusion also comments on trends in union dissolution research. 2. Age, period, and cohort The basic time dimensions of union dissolution-namely, the spouses' ages, the duration of their union, the period, and the union cohort (the time the partners moved in together or married)-were given more attention in the 1980s than they are now. The increase in divorce risk over (historical) time can be a cohort-driven phenomenon: different cohorts may bring, for example, different experiences, resources, and expectations to their unions, and these differences may translate into higher divorce risks for younger cohorts. …

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A review of the antecedents of union dissolution

European countries differ considerably in their marriage patterns. The study presented in this paper describes these differences for the 1990s and attempts to explain them from a macro-level perspective. We find that different indicators of marriage (i.e., marriage rate, age at marriage, divorce rate, and prevalence of unmarried cohabitation) cannot be seen as indicators of an underlying concept such as the ‘strength of marriage’. Multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses are estimated with countries as units and panel regression models are estimated in which annual time series for multiple countries are pooled. Using these models, we find that popular explanations of trends in the indicators—explanations that focus on gender roles, secularization, unemployment, and educational expansion—are also important for understanding differences among countries. We also find evidence for the role of historical continuity and societal disintegration in understanding cross-national differences.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/27643427.pdf

Explaining cross-national differences in marriage, cohabitation, and divorce in Europe, 1990-2000.

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 endogamous marriages, but these findings did not hold up consistently. After controlling for couple characteristics, the risk of divorce or separation among interracial couples was similar to the more-divorce-prone origin group. Although marital dissolution was found to be strongly associated with race/ethnicity, the results failed to provide evidence that interracial marriage is associated with an elevated risk of marital dissolution.

Marital Dissolution Among Interracial Couples

Contrary to previous studies treating divorce as a couple’s decision, we make a distinction between ‘his’, ‘her’, and ‘their’ divorce by using information about who initiated divorce. Using competing risk analysis, we re-examine four well-known determinants of divorce: (i) the wife’s employment, (ii) the financial situation of the household, (iii) the presence of children, and (iv) the quality of the match. Because existing arguments on the underlying mechanisms focus on the relative costs and benefits of a divorce for the wife, the husband and/or the couple, this approach offers new insights into the validity of competing theories. Our results confirm some theoretical interpretations, but they refute others. Furthermore, our findings shed light on the gendered nature of divorce. We not only find that women more often take the initiative to divorce, we also find that many social and economic determinants have stronger effects on ‘her’ divorce than on ‘his’ divorce. The one exception is children, which seem to affect men’s decision to (not) divorce more strongly than women’s decision.

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His or Her Divorce? The Gendered Nature of Divorce and its Determinants

A textbook hypothesis about divorce is that heterogamous marriages are more likely to end in divorce than homogamous marriages. We analyse vital statistics on the population of the Netherlands, which provide a unique and powerful opportunity to test this hypothesis. All marriages formed between 1974 and 1984 (nearly 1 million marriages) are traced in the divorce records and multivariate logistic regression models are used to analyse the effects on divorce of heterogamy in religion and national origin. Our analyses confirm the hypothesis for marriages that cross the Protestant–Catholic or the Jewish–Gentile boundary. Heterogamy effects are weaker for marriages involving Protestants or unaffiliated persons. Marriages between Dutch and other nationalities have a higher risk of divorce, the more so the greater the cultural differences between the two groups. Overall, the evidence supports the view that, in the Netherlands, new group boundaries are more difficult to cross than old group boundaries.

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Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands: the effects of differences in religion and in nationality, 1974-94.

Heterogamie en echtscheiding: een analyse van Nederlandse registergegevens 1974-1994

This article addresses the question of whether sociological factors have an influence on the instability of relations. Instability was measured with several questions, ranging from questions about thinking of and discussing divorce to questions about thoughts of alternative partners. Using data on 1468 cohabitating and married couples, we found that only 3% of the partners talk with friends about divorce, while about 15% think of alternative partners. On the basis of earlier divorce literature, we distinguished four categories of sociological determinants of instability: factors related to (a) search behavior, (b) division of labor in the household, (c) social and cultural heterogamy, and (d) socialization in the parental home. Multivariate analyses showed that sociological factors do indeed affect the instability of relationships. First, the relatively instable relations of couples marrying young, and couples marrying because of a premarital pregnancy showed that a longer search period increases marital stability. Second, a traditional division of labor makes relations more stable, as is shown by the effects of wife's employment, her potential income and husband's unemployment on marital instability. Third, couples heterogamous with respect to education and social background were somewhat less stable than homogenous couples. Finally, Less traditional couples and couples whose parents were divorced had instable relations compared to other couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Mens en Maatschappij is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

De instabiliteit van huwelijken en samenwoonrelaties in Nederland : Een sociologische analyse

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J.P.G. Janssen

Papers

Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands: the effects of differences in religion and in nationality, 1974-94.

Heterogamie en echtscheiding: een analyse van Nederlandse registergegevens 1974-1994

De instabiliteit van huwelijken en samenwoonrelaties in Nederland : Een sociologische analyse

De instabiliteit van huwelijken en samenwoonrelaties in Nederland

The effect of intermarriage with respect to religion and national origins on the risk of divorce : evidence from vital statistics in the Netherlands