Showing papers by "Linda J. Waite published in 1995"

Does Marriage Matter

Abstract: When politicians point to the high social costs and taxpayer burden imposed by disintegrating `family values they overlook the fact that individuals do not simply make the decisions that lead to unwed parenthood marriage or divorce on the basis of what is good for society. They weigh the costs and benefits of each of these choices to themselves--and sometimes their children. But how much do individuals know about these costs and benefits? I think that we as demographers have something to contribute here. As individual researchers we investigate the relationship between marriage and longevity wealth earnings or childrens achievements but we rarely try to pull all this evidence together. I would like to argue that we have an opportunity and an obligation to do that and to tell people what their decisions about marriage and family potentially mean for them as individuals. That is my objective here. (EXCERPT)

'Til Death Do Us Part: Marital Disruption and Mortality

Abstract: Both men and women appear to benefit from being married. This article uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine the extent to which three key factors-financial well-being, living arrangements, and marital history-account for this relationship. The authors model mortality using a flexible hazard model and find that both married men and women show substantially lower risks of dying than those who are not married. The study's results suggest that-for women but not for men-the improved financial well-being that often accompanies marriage accounts for much of its beneficial effect. For both husbands and wives the benefits from marriage appear to cumulate as the length of the union increases.

Attitudes, Values, and Entrance into Cohabitational versus Marital Unions

Abstract: This article argues that marriage and cohabitation are associated with important differences in work patterns, earnings, treatment of money, use of leisure time, social relations with the extended family, the division of household labor, and fertility. We hypothesize that these differences lead those considering the formation of a household to consider their attitudes toward these aspects of life, which appear to be so different in marriage from those in cohabitation. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, we test and find support for the hypothesis that the choice between cohabitation and marriage is affected by attitudes and values toward work, family, use of leisure time, money, and sex roles, as well as values and attitudes toward marriage itself Cohabitation is now an important form of union formation in the U.S. Recent estimates suggest that about 35% of those born in the early 1960s will live with someone of the opposite sex before age 25 compared to less than 8% of those born in the early 1940s (Bumpass & Sweet 1989). Although cohabitation is now unexceptional, key questions remain about why some who form households establish cohabitational unions while others marry. This article argues that the choice between marriage and cohabitation impinges on a wide range of activities, circumstances, and social relations. These most obviously include procreation and relations between cohabitants or spouses, but we argue that they also comprise relations with extended family, leisure pursuits, employment, division of economic resources, and division of household labor. Cohabiting may allow individuals or couples who feel unready for the demands of marriage to delay the assumption of marital roles but to acquire the benefits

Premarital Cohabitation and Subsequent Marital Dissolution: A Matter of Self-Selection?"

Abstract: Married couples who began their relationship by cohabiting appear to face an increased risk of marital dissolution, which may be due to self-selection of more dissolution-prone individuals into cohabitation before marriage. This paper uses newly developed econometric methods to explicitly address the endogeneity of cohabitation before marriage in the hazard of marital disruption by allowing the unobserved heterogeneity components to be correlated across the decisions to cohabit and to end a marriage. These methods are applied to data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. We find significant heterogeneity in both cohabitation and marriage disruption, and discover evidence of self-selection into cohabitation.

Religious participation in early adulthood: age and family life cycle effects on church membership*

Abstract: We attempt to integrate, elaborate, and test competing theories of why religious participation increases with age during young adulthood. We reconceptualize age and family formation as interacting causes of religious participation rather than competing explanations of it. We expand the concept offamily formation to include divorce, cohabitation, and dissolution of cohabitational relationships. We distinguish attitudes toward the family from family formation behavior. We analyze data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, which traces church membership to age 32. Our results show that the effect of children on church membership varies with the combination of the children's and parent's ages. We find separate effects of family formation behavior and attitudes toward the family. Cohabitation, divorce, and dissolution of cohabitational unions all affect membership probability, but these effects vary with age and are often differentfor men and women. n most religious traditions practiced in the United States, religious values and participation in religious organizations are deeply intertwined with values and attitudes that encourage marriage and parenthood. Most formal religious dogmas promote the establishment and maintenance of family relationships. Organized religions offer institutionalized moral support for love, intimacy, and childbearing in the context of religiously sanctioned marriage (D'Antonio 1983, 1985;