Marriage and union formation, families and households

Total fertility rate in Iran has reached from 7 children in 1985 to 1.9 children per woman in 2006, in other hand, it can be said that Iran has came to the second demographic transition from this year. Of course, it must be noted that population growth rate of the country has not reached at balance level revealed in the first demographic transition and annual growth rate of population is 1.28% according to the new statistics. This rate is caused by population age structure and quickness of the first demographic transition that is an exception in terms of duration, in compared with developed countries.
Van De Kaa believes that in the second demographic transition, secondary needs are replaced by material values equal with primary needs.
Beside the socio-cultural changes in society, many of fundamental changes have happened in sexual relations, marriage and family. In societies, within the recent decades, family as a social institution has been changed.
The aim of this study is to assess the changes of marriage and divorce in Iran and definition effective socio-economic factors.
Method of the study is secondary analysis and necessary data were sourced by center of civil management and the results of DHS project in 2010.

Indian marriage system has traditionally been characterized by universal marriage with strong caste endogamy, relatively early marriage and by very low divorce rates. But with economic liberalization, growth of mass media and increasing participation of women in tertiary education and in the paid labor force, the traditional marriage system has come under pressure. If media reports are believed, self-arranged marriages are becoming common and divorce rates are on the upward march. But these reports are based on anecdotal and selective data. The absence of good quality data on marriage has meant that there has not been any rigorous demographic study of these trends in India. However three recent surveys-- Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS, 2005-6), District Level Health Survey (DLHS-3, 2007-8) and Youth in India (2006-7)—have information on various aspects of marriage. Using these datasets, I will in this paper: present a comprehensive picture of marriage trends and characteristics covering topics such as the prevalence of arranged marriages, trends in consanguineous and endogamous marriages and assortative mating patterns and trends in divorce; Analyze variations by region, religion and education; c) situate the findings within the broader literature on changes in institutional, structural and ideational changes in India.

Families have to make adjustments in their lifestyles and shoulder greater responsibilities as a consequence of the migration of a male member. Hence, an attempt has been made in this paper to study the way the left-behind wives adapt and adjust in absence of their husbands in the villages. Primary data has been collected during January-March 2010 by undertaking a complete house listing of six villages of Pindra block of Varanasi, a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. This research found that the wives left behind reside mostly with their in-laws, with some moving from non-nuclear households to nuclear households. Moreover, parents-in-law have more of an influence on the lives of the wives left behind than parents do, providing more (and different types of) support for them in the absence of their husbands.

The aim of this study is to investigate separations in Sweden and to see what factors that affect the dissolution of a union. The data used is based on information from the Swedish Total Population Register and covers the about 30 000 couples that had their first biological child in 2000. The couples are followed from the day that they started living together to a possible separation or the end of 2010.The result shows that when comparing with the child’s year of birth, the likelihood of separation is significant higher during all studied calendar years. The data is also analyzed using two Cox proportional hazard regression models. The first model, standardized by demographic factors, indicates for instance that young mothers and a short time of cohabitation means a high risk to separate and that cohabiting couples have a higher propensity to separate than married couples. The second model shows that low educated couples and couples were both are unemployed have a high risk to separate, when controlling for other socioeconomic factors. These results are consistent with earlier studies from the mid 1990s among parents based on Swedish register data.

Childbearing is a common way that many persons expect and are expected to deepen the bonds of their romantic relationships. This paper looks at what happens to marital and cohabiting relationships when this pathway to intimacy is interrupted. Using waves I, III, and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I employ event history methods to investigate the influence of miscarriage(s) on the risk of union dissolution. I find that miscarriage is associated with a greater risk of dissolution for married childless couples but not for cohabiting childless couples. For married and cohabiting couples with children, miscarriage does not increase the risk of divorce or separation. These findings illuminate the relational dimensions of subfecundity and draw attention to the influence that unexpected health events can have on family relationships. Additionally, this paper provides new evidence that marriage and cohabitation remain distinct with respect to childbearing in the US.

Using the nationally representative India Human Development Survey (2005), this paper studies marital homogamy by caste and class across marriage types in India. Our hypothesis is that if kin or extended family is involved in arranging a marriage, they are then also likely to follow the traditional prescriptions of marrying within their caste. At the other end, we expect that people who describe themselves as having a "love marriage" are people who are less inclined to follow tradition by marrying within their caste. Like caste, social class is important as a system of stratification in capitalist India. While social class is not as easily tracked by discerning the dictates of tradition, we expect that the association between marriage type and marital homogamy to work in a comparable manner. Preliminary cross tabulations support the hypothesis that love marriages are both less likely to be within the same caste and class than parent arranged ones. We examine this association further in a regression framework, controlling for background characteristics such as education levels, caste, income levels, and region. We also theorize that it is important to understand the role of cultural narratives in order to grasp the association between marriages and homogeneity.

In India,where marriage is nearly universal and since considerable proportions of marriages in India take place at ages close to the start of the reproductive age of women, raising the age at marriage is seen as one of the relatively few important policy interventions'beyond family planning' that might affect fertility.Though in India law abides people for marriage registration but still there is poor registration of such data and not much effort are also being made in this regard.In India there is complete lack of data on the number of marriages and hence no attempt was made to study the marriage rates which reflect the frequencies with which marriages are taking place in the population.This study attempts have been made to find out the marriage rates in India,so as to understand the level and pattern of frequency of marriages in India and across different states under different sections of the population.This study uses the second and third rounds of District Level Household Survey of India for innovative estimation of various marriage rates and also to find out risk factors related to marriages below legal age at marriage. This rates on marriage can use by the demographers for construction of nuptiality tables.

This study is inspired by a query challenging whether marriage or marital status does matter to affect one’s happiness in the contexts of Thai society. It employs a set of secondary data from the “1st round Happiness Survey among Thai Workers” in 2012 in the analysis (n of the workers aged between 35-54 years =4,050).
Marital statuses are defined to be “single”, “married” and “ever married” (those widowed, separated, and divorced). Happiness scores are computed into two happiness composite scores; “self-outward happiness” (including the scores of happy heart, happy soul, happy society, happy work life and happy brain) and “self-inward happiness” (including the scores of happy money, happy relax, happy body and happy family).
Preliminary results reveal the significance of “marital status” in affecting happiness/unhappiness of individuals in the middle-aged. For self-outward happiness, the married individuals are more likely to be happy than those who are single. The ever-married are found more likely to be happy than the single. Looking at self-inward happiness, the married individuals are found more likely to be happy than the single individuals. Somehow, the significance is statistically weak at 10 % level. The ever-married individuals are least likely to be happy compared to other groups.

In this paper I ask three questions:
1. Are recent rises in the age at marriage in India being correctly attributed to positive changes in attitudes and aspirations?
2. Can we learn more about the impetus behind the rising age at marriage by looking at changes in the age at marriage of men rather than in women?
3. Just because raising the age at marriage has historically been advocated to lower fertility and population growth, does it follow that later marriage and childbearing are good for women and children too?
An exploration of the nuptiality transition in India suggests that it may not be as definitive as the term implies and that it may at least partly reflect an inability of men to marry for several reasons. The result – rising numbers of young unattached males – while good for population size, might not be so good for social and political stability.

Since 2001, Vietnamese brides account for almost half of the foreign brides in Taiwan. In 2006, Vietnamese brides accounted for 85 percent of total 11,973 persons becoming Taiwanese citizens with an additional 1,000 new brides each year. This study provides an overview of characteristics of Vietnamese brides as well as factors affecting their decision to marry with Taiwanese. The study is conducted in Mekong River Delta – the main source of Vietnamese brides to Taiwan Research findings reveal a big gap in age between brides and blooms i.e. 13 year, relative low educations and lower economic conditions. The marriages are in many cases arranged by marriage agencies with average time to official marriage ceremony is only 3.5 days. Marriage decision is decided by the brides themselves (40%), parents (34%) and jointly (24%). Economic reason plays an important role in making marriage decision in the forms of willingness to help families or the brides themselves want to have opportunity to change their lives, to stay in a foreign country, etc. Public attitude towards this marriage phenomenon also change over time from against the marriage to understanding and then somewhat agree with the Vietnamese brides.