Marriage and union formation, families and households

The demography of disasters is an emerging, under-researched field of potentially great significance for public policy specialists and disaster risk reduction managers, especially in the context of the increasing intensity and frequency of natural disasters arising from climate change. There is growing awareness of the need to bring together the demography, disasters and development research communities to investigate issues at the intersection of these three important contextual frameworks. (UNDP, 2009) Asia, which has the largest part of the world’s population, experiences the majority of natural disasters, has the highest proportion of mortalities, and suffers the most extensive losses in terms of both material assets and human resources(IFRCRCS, 2009). This is a function of both socially constructed vulnerability (Cutter, 1996) and risk governance. To enhance our understanding of the cross-sectoral nature of the demography of disasters, this paper examines issues impacting on family formation, household composition and health following recent disasters in Iran, Taiwan and Myanmar. It takes into account the cross-cultural contexts, and differences in governance. Initial findings suggest that while women and children suffer the highest mortalities during disasters, re-marriage patterns are not linear.

It is evident that rapid global changes including urbanization, migration, increasing educational opportunities and technological advancement have impact on the institution of marriage all over the world and India is not exception to these changes. However, traditional values and norms have still playing significant influence on age at marriage, process of mate selection, dowry, status of bride in family etc. Youth in India study, a sub nationally representative survey, provide us an opportunity to explore these dimensions minutely. Results reveal that arrange marriage prevails irrespective of states, however some independency in choice of groom or bride is observed in Tamil Nadu. Largely, youth in northern states are not aware about their would-be spouse before marriage, which is not the case for southern states. Men are excited about marriage while for female; marriage is a reason to worry. The chances of knowing spouse before marriage is significantly more, if the age at marriage is above the legal age. Better economic condition and mother’s education, education of married women appeared as significant and positive determinants on this. Men and women living in non-nuclear family and in rural areas are less likely to interact with their spouse before marriage

The aim of this research is to determine whether or not there are changes in household family arrangements in post-war El Salvador, and if these changes are related to remittances, the intra-home dependency rates, and sociodemographic characteristics of the household head (sex, age, education and work activity).

In order to do this, the analysis will focus on two different years: 1995 and 2010. The Multipurpose Household Survey (MHS) was used as the source of historical data. Family arrangements were built according to kinship with the household head as reported in the survey.

Marriage is an important social institution associated with the transition into adulthood and childbearing in many societies. Childbearing and marriage are inseparable yet, particularly in East Asia, and aging of childbearing is closely related to the postponement of marriage in this area. A body of literature suggests that women’s educational attainment plays an important role in the timing of first marriage and marriage rate. Despite widespread interest in low fertility, research on the postponement and recuperation of first marriage in low fertility context remains unexplored. The sustained increase in age at first marriage without much change in the proportion of never-married among older women implies that considerable proportion of delayed marriage is recuperated later in East Asia. With a series of Korean Census samples data, this study investigates the postponement and recuperation of first marriage in South Korea, one of the lowest-low fertility countries, and also examines how it differs across women’s educational levels. The result of this study provides evidence that the pattern of family formation is diverged by women’s educational levels in South Korea.

Individuals seeking to remarry often face a more restricted marriage market compared with those searching for marriage for the first time. Marriage market constraints after divorce mean that individuals must often “cast a wider net” that includes potential partners of different ages, education, racial backgrounds, or nativity status. In this paper, we identify marriages formed in the previous year from 2008 to 2010 microfiles of the American Community Surveys. We examine whether remarried couples are more likely to cross racial/ethnic or nativity boundaries to form intermarriage than first married couples. We formulate hypotheses based on status exchange theories. Our results reveal that remarried individuals are more likely to form white-minority marriages than first married couples. In addition, marriages involving at least one person who has been previously married (i.e., divorced) are more heterogeneous in marriage order, educational attainment, and age than those couples in which both spouses are in first marriages. These results suggest strong status exchange in intermarriage among the remarried.

Women, especially mothers, are less likely than men to form new partnerships after union dissolution. As women are often primary custodial parents, finding and building relationships with a new partner might be prevented by lack of time and energy because they are caring for co-residential children. Given increases in shared physical custody in many countries, however, this stylized fact might change as fathers increase their child rearing responsibilities. Using data from the British Millennium Cohort Study and discrete-time event history analyses, we examine the prevalence and predictors of maternal repartnering into marriage or cohabitation during the first 7 years of a child’s life. Preliminary results suggest that, contrary to much of the existing theory, higher levels of visitation by the non-resident father was linked to lower maternal repartnering rates in the following period. This finding was robust to all of the model specifications. We find little evidence linking either child support receipt or child characteristics to maternal repartnering, except for the child’s ethnicity. Our results therefore suggest that recent trends toward increased shared physical child custody in industrialized countries are likely to diminish the likelihood of mothers repartnering, at least during the first 7 years of a child’s life.

Traditional family arrangements have become less normative in contemporary society as more children are reared in cohabiting and single-parent families. Extant research has established the negative effects of non-traditional family arrangements on child well-being, but the literature is void of a comprehensive examination of the how family context on indicators of child well-being varies across race. In this study, I will use data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey to investigate the mediating and moderating influences of race on the relationship between family context and child food insecurity. Preliminary results reveal that approximately 21% of children experience food insecurity, and food insecurity is more prevalent among single parent households and Hispanic children. However, multivariate analyses reveal a more intricate relationship between family context and race. Black children with married parents are the least likely to report food insecurity. White children in single parent and cohabiting families are the most likely to report food insecurity. Among Hispanic children, those living in cohabiting families are the least likely to experience food insecurity, while Hispanic children living in married and single parent families have a similar probability of experiencing food insecurity.

Demographic change is a product of a complex web of social interactions. These interactions inform, motivate and facilitate demographic events such as family formation, childbearing and migration, and the social fabric on which these interactions take place has the form of a network defining links between individuals. Agent-based simulation modelling can formalise this link between network interactions and demographic outcomes and furthermore allows the systematic testing of the plausibility of hypotheses about how the two are linked. This paper describes results from a simulation model of interaction over a dynamic social network, in which agents have incomplete, evolving and falsifiable preferences as to potential partners.

“Shengnü” is a new social and culture phenomenon in China, especially urban China. Literally meaning “leftover woman”, it is a snazzy and demeaning word to describe unmarried women at age 30 and above. How does China, a country that was characteristic for universal female marriage and known to have a huge army of surplus-man, produce a group of un-marriageable women? This paper argues that the conflict of two competing cultural expectations of hypergamy -- female age and status hypergamy -- creates a mismatch that puts highly educated women at a disadvantage position in the marriage market. Using the 2005 mini-census, we examine the emergence of “Shengnü” phenomenon in Shanghai over the last two decades. We decompose the observed decline in marriage rates to study the contribution of marriage market mismatch, and compare with the findings from the United States and Japan. We further examine individual’s coping strategy facing the market squeeze.

This paper investigates determinants of marriage dissolution in India. District Level Household Survey-3 (2007-08) data have been used. This paper investigates the factors affecting the marriage dissolution in India by various geographical regions using multivariate hazard model. It is found that age at marriage is an important factor affecting the marriage dissolution after controlling for all other socioeconomic variables. Women marrying at their later ages, their risk of marriage dissolution are greater than those marrying at their early ages. Chances of getting divorce declines with the increasing level of education, it is found that at each unit increase of marital duration, women literate below high school the risk of failure increases 1.2 times as compare to others. Childless women are at greater risk for marriage dissolution. Results suggest that dissolution rates are quite higher in northeastern, western and southern regions.
Attempts have been also made to see the association between age at marriage and dissolution rates in various states of India by using census data (Census of India, 1971-2001). It is found in southern and northeastern region age at marriage and dissolution rate are high as compared to the northern, central, eastern and western region.