The changing patterns of marriage and partnerships and their effects on fertility

The sequence of demographic events is a very indicative parameter of demographic changes. It demonstrates how diversely different generations construct their demographic life course, what they prefer to do first and when. The first demographic events are more interesting than events of other orders because all the people usually have at least one of them. It allows comparing different age groups of the population. Moreover, the first demographic events accompany a coming-of-age thus we can see when and how representatives of different generations were becoming adult.
This paper investigates the difference between soviet and post-soviet Russians in family formation and fertility spheres. There were constructed life courses for each generation. Thereupon we analyzed them by Event History Analysis and compared the sequences and the timing of the first reproductive and matrimonial events.
We discovered the striking change of the actual behavior in demographic sphere. The Russian youth are making families and bearing children in absolutely new way than their parents and grandparents were. There is no more hurry to live, obligations to have children if you married, and to marry if you bore a child. There is a new generation with new values and new behavior.

I have proposed a marital fertility measure, ETFR or ever-married total fertility, defined by TFR／TFMR，where TFR is the total fertility rate, and TFMR the total first marriage rate（Hirosima and Bando,1991; Ohtani,1993). Using this measure, the decomposition of the increase in the TFRs from 2005(1.26) to 2010 (1.39) shows that 90.9 percent of the increase is accounted for by the increase in the first marriage rate and only 9.1 percent by that in marital fertility.
The upturn of the first marriage rate by age occurred not only at 30's but also at the latter half of 20's of women, which suggests not only the recuperation but also a change in marriage market, considering the everlasting deteriorating economic situation.
The increase in the first marriage rate is more remarkable in large metropolitan areas and in south west Japan where the traditional gender role model prevails less. The regional aspect of marriage rate increase provides another evidence of the marriage market change.
The economic situation has been breaking the conventional male breadwinner model, and women earning higher income are getting favorable situation rather than unfavorable one. This can be one of the main causes of marriage hence fertility increase in Japan.

This paper investigates marriage patterns, particularly the rates of marriage and marital homogamy in Lebanon. The legacy of sixteen years of civil war has resulted in imbalances between males and females and institutionalization of migration particularly among young men. This along with the increased levels of women’s education has affected the marriage market for both men and women. We hypothesize that those with higher levels of education will have lower marriage rates, higher levels of women never-married by age 35, and lower marital homogamy. This study uses data from the Lebanese Family Health Survey 2004 conducted by the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Central Administration of Statistics as part of an agreement with the Pan-Arab Project for Family Health (PAPFAM). It collected data from 5532 households and 3365 ever married women between ages 15-54 with overall response rate of 96.2%.Data on households and persons in household roster are used

African families are undergoing transition from two parent’s family to a one parent family giving rise to the emergence of single mother families, which are associated with negative child outcome. This study intends to examine levels and the factors that are associated with single motherhood in Zimbabwe using the Demographic and Health Surveys of Zimbabwe (2010-2011). A total of 1502 single mothers in Zimbabwe, who have at least one dependent child under the age of 18, will be used as the study population. Statistical analysis will be done at univariate, bivariate and multivariate levels. The main model to be used is logistic regression. The findings revealed that contraceptive use, region, age of respondent, religion, wealth index, and marital status are significantly associated with single motherhood. The study will be extended to other Southern African countries: Lesotho and Swaziland.

In recent years there has been generally an increase in the number of years people continue to be unmarried and, in particular, a rise in girls’ marriage age is being observed. In view of the fact that a rise in marriage age leads to decreasing women ’s fertility and consequently population will be declining and the society will face the phenomenon of population aging in long term, the investigation of single life style and its pros and cons for those who will choose to live it, is of crucial importance. The present study is a research into the lived experiences of single women i.e.those who are over 35 years of old and have not been married. This study adopted the phenomenological approach, and phenomenological method,since by taking ontological tenets into account, it mainly focuses on the first hand or lived experiences and keeps away from secondary issues. Findings were obtained through in-depth phenomenologically-oriented interviews with fifteen never-married women from Tehran city who were selected by purposive snowball-dependent sampling. The results suggest that contrary to other countries research findings, singlehood in Iran have posed problems for never-married women. In fact, women don’t take a positive view toward the phenomenon of singlehood .

The trend in union formation among women has changed in the Philippines in the last decade. Based on the series of national demographic surveys, the percentage of Filipino women in a formal marriage generally declined (53 percent in 1998 to 51 percent in 2008). During the same period, the percentage of women who entered into a cohabiting union almost doubled from six percent to 11 percent. These trends are no different from those found using the census data (see Kabamalan, 2006).

But while such levels of change can be analyzed using cross-sectional data repeatedly, one cannot find out how the marital behaviour for an individual changed over time because there are different people in the sample for the different years. This paper attempts to fill this gap by using pseudo cohorts which enables for the tracking of the average experiences of people born in the same year. Thus, trends over time, trends by age and their interaction can be examined.

Following the procedures described by (Uren, 2006) for the General Household Survey Pseudo Cohort Dataset, the 1998, 2003 and 2008 National Demographic and Health Surveys for the Philippines was transformed into one dataset containing over 41,000 individual records from the birth cohorts of 1948 to 1993.

Gender imbalance in the marriage market is commonly known as marriage squeeze, it can be either for male or female. The present study is based on India, China and Korea only. The reason behind the selection is that these typical countries are facing very much distorted sex ratio at birth due to sex determination test and sex selective abortions which are affecting sex ratio at birth (SRB). Also it is seen that SRB is an important factor affecting the marriage market, thus in this context present study is trying to capture the levels and trends of marriage squeeze for the period 2000-2050, also trying to get the association between SRB and marriage squeeze. Analysis shows that if fertility and mortality condition will remain same in future then these countries will face high male marriage squeeze. Whereas improvement in SRB might be help to balance marriage market up to some extent.

The objective of this work is to study the factors that affect the decision to enter into cohabitation or marriage in the first union among Uruguayan women, in the framework of a significant increase in consensual unions in Uruguay during the last two decades. This work aims at contributing to a better understanding of the determining factors that underlie the choice of one or other type of union among women who enter into first unions, and in particular to understand the interaction of structural and value-related factors. For this purpose, we have analyzed the form of entry into first unions using proportional risk models and taking into consideration three groups of variables: structural, background, and variables related to values and attitudes. We expect to find differences in the choice of union type and, in particular, of the time of transitioning into marriage, based on social strata and values.

As other East Asian societies, Taiwan has confronted a remarkable decline in the number of births during the last decades. The more recent decline is largely attributed to a significant increase in the educational attainment of women, along with improved employment opportunities and higher wages for women in this region. It has been argued that both nuptiality and marital fertility have contributed to the recent fertility decline in Taiwan, and their relative importance actually varied over time. For younger cohorts, the changing preference for ideal partner/spouse has emerged as a priority concern in the decision-making process of union formation. In addition, the declining fertility rate is also due to perceived difficulty in raising children, particularly by working mothers. Using data from Taiwan’s Vital Statistics and Household Registration Records between 1976 and 2010, firstly, we will reconstruct completed fertility rates for female birth cohorts born before 1960 and model the CFRs for younger cohorts. Next, we will illustrate the extent to which changes in first marriage and childbearing behavior after marriage have contributed independently to the decline in fertility since 1970s. Based on these results, we will explain contemporary differences in cohort fertility and discuss the possibility of recuperation.

This paper aims to assess the relations between experience of premarital heterosexual liaisons and marital timing and identify the effect of experience of various premarital heterosexual intimacy on elevated age at first marriage among young educated men and women in Tehran. This paper is based on the quantitative part of a cross sectional mix method study which designed to assess the influence of premarital heterosexual liaisons on marriage, divorce and marital satisfaction. 2031 university students aged 18-40 from among 7 universities (both public and private) in Tehran were selected, using two stage stratified cluster sampling. Data collection was completed between January 2010 and May 2011. The survey instrument was an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. The mean age of college students was 22.5, 12% of college students were married. The mean age of marriage among those who reported experience of more than 3 premarital heterosexual liaisons was significantly greater than those who reported fewer premarital heterosexual relationships (24.5 Vs. 22.7, P<0.05). In addition, mean age at marriage among young people who reported premarital sexual relationships was significantly greater than those who did not report such relations (24.9 vs. 5.22, P<0.001).