This article examines union entrance among never-married young men, focusing on whether the importance of a man’s being economically established to marry has decreased in this new era of cohabitation and working wives. The authors test this assumption by examining marriage and cohabitation as competing risks to see whether the importance of employment has changed between the cohorts of the 1970s and 1990s. Data are from the National Survey of the Labor Force Experience of Young Men and the National Survey of Families and Households. The results show that Controlling cohabitation as a competing risk makes some difference in models of marriage, because marriage is somewhat more selective. More important changes reflect the decline in the importance of employment and the increased role of values. Indirect indicators, such as race, region, and childhood family structure, and direct measures of gender role attitudes have become critical influences on men’s likelihood of union formation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Allison, P. D. (1995). Survival analysis using the SAS system: A practical guide. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc.
2.
Austen, J. (1963). Pride and prejudice. New York: Simon & Schuster. (Original work published 1813)
3.
Axinn, W. G., & Thornton, A. (1995). The influence of parents’ marital dissolution on children’s attitudes toward family formation. Demography, 33, 66-81.
4.
Becker, G. (1991). A treatise on the family (enlarged edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5.
Bulcroft, R., & Bulcroft, K. (1993). Race differences in attitudinal and motivational factors in the decision to marry. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 338-355.
6.
Bumpass, L. L., & Lu, H. H. (1999). Trends in cohabitation and implications for children’s family contexts in the United States. Population Studies, 54, 29-41.
7.
Bumpass, L. L., & Sweet, J. A. (1989). National estimates of cohabitation. Demography, 26, 615-625.
8.
Bumpass, L. L., Sweet, J. A., & Cherlin, A. (1991). The role of cohabitation in declining rates of marriage. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53, 913-927.
9.
Burtless, G. (1990). A future of lousy jobs? The changing structure of U.S. wages. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.
10.
Chase-Lansdale, L., & Gordon, R. (1996). Economic hardship and the development of 5- and 6-year-olds: Neighborhood and regional perspectives. Child Development, 67, 3338-3367.
11.
Clarkberg, M. (1999). The price of partnering: The role of economic well-being in young adults’ first union experiences. Social Forces, 77, 945-969.
12.
Clarkberg, M., Stolzenberg, R. M., & Waite, L. J. (1995). Attitudes, values, and entrance into cohabitational versus marital unions. Social Forces, 74, 609-632.
13.
Farley, R., & Allen, W. R. (1987). The color line and the quality of life in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
14.
Fitzgerald, J., Gottschalk, P., & Moffitt, R. (1996). A study of sample attrition in the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Unpublished manuscript, Johns Hopkins University.
15.
Gerson, K. (1993). No man’s land: Men’s changing commitment to family and work. New York: Basic Books.
16.
Glenn, N. D. (1996). Values, attitudes, and the state of American marriage. In D. Popenoe, J. B. Elshtain, & D. Blankenhorn (Eds.), Promises to keep: Decline and renewal of marriage in America (pp. 15-34). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
17.
Glenn, N., & Supancic, M. (1984). The social and demographic correlates of divorce and separation in the United States: An update and reconsideration. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 46, 563-576.
18.
Glick, P., & Lin, C. (1985). More young adults are living with parents: Who are they? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 107-112.
19.
Goldscheider, F., & Goldscheider, C. (1993). Leaving home before marriage: Ethnicity, religiosity, and generational relationships. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
20.
Goldscheider, F., & Goldscheider, C. (1999). The changing transition to adulthood: Leaving and returning home. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
21.
Goldscheider, C., & Mosher, W. (1991). Patterns of contraceptive use in the United States: The importance of religious factors. Family Planning Perspectives, 23, 288-290.
22.
Goldscheider, F. K., & Waite, L. J. (1986). Sex differences in the entry into marriage. American Journal of Sociology, 92, 91-109.
23.
Hajnal, J. (1982). Two kinds of preindustrial household formation systems. Population and Development Review, 8(3), 449-494.
24.
Hanushek, E., & Jackson, J. (1977). Statistical methods for social scientists. New York: Academic Press.
25.
Haurin, D., Hendershott, P., & Kim, D. (1993.). The impact of real rents and wages on household formation. Review of Economics and Statistics, 75, 284-293.
26.
Hogan, D. (1978). The effects of demographic factors, family background, and early job achievement on age at marriage. Demography, 15, 161-175.
27.
Jaynes, G., & Williams, R. (Eds.). (1989). A common destiny: Blacks and American society. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
28.
Kalbfleisch, J. D., & Prentice, R. L. (1980). The statistical analysis of failure time data. New York: John Wiley.
29.
Koball, H. (1998). Have African-American men become less committed to marriage? Explaining the twentieth century racial cross-over. Demography, 35, 251-258.
30.
Landale, N. S. (1989). Agricultural opportunity and marriage: The United States at the turn of the century. Demography, 26, 203-218.
31.
Landale, N. S., & Tolnay, S. E. (1991). Group differences in economic opportunity and the timing of marriage: Blacks and Whites in the rural South, 1910. American Sociological Review, 56, 33-45.
32.
Lesthaeghe, R., & Meekers, D. (1986). Value changes and the dimensions of familism in the European community. European Journal of Population, 2, 225-268.
33.
Levy, F. (1995). Incomes and income inequality. In R. Farley (Ed.), State of the union: America in the 1990s: Economic trends (pp. 1-58). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
34.
Lloyd, K. M., & South, S. J. (1996). Contextual influences on young men’s transition to first marriage. Social Forces, 74(3), 1097-1119.
35.
Mare, R. D., & Winship, C. (1991). Socioeconomic change and the decline of marriage for Blacks and Whites. In C. Jencks& P. E. Peterson (Eds.), The urban underclass (pp. 175-202). Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute.
36.
McNally, J., Sassler, S., & Schoen, R. (1997). Misplaced affection: Using multiple imputation to reconstruct missing cohabiting partner information in the NSFH (Working Paper 97-09). Providence, RI: Brown University, Population Studies and Training Center.
37.
Olsen, R. (1993). NLS handbook: 1992. Columbus, OH: Center for Human Resource Research, The Ohio State University.
38.
Oppenheimer, V. K. (1988). A theory of marriage timing. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 563-591.
39.
Oppenheimer, V. K., Blossfeld, H., & Wackerow, A. (1995). United States of America. In H. Blossfeld (Ed.), The new role of women (pp. 150-173). Boulder, CO: Westview.
40.
Oppenheimer, V. K., Kalmijn, M., & Lim, N. (1996). Men’s career development and marriage timing during a period of rising inequality. Demography, 34, 311-330.
41.
Popenoe, D., & Whitehead, B. D. (1999). Should we live together? What young adults need to know about cohabitation before marriage. The National Marriage Project, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
42.
Raley, R. K. (1996). A shortage of marriageable men? A note on the role of cohabitation in Black-White differences in marriage rates. American Sociological Review, 61, 973-983.
43.
Rendall, M., Clarke, L., Peters, H. E., Ranjit, N., & Verropoulou, G. (1999). Incomplete reporting of male fertility in the United States and Britain: A research note. Demography, 36, 135-144.
44.
Rindfuss, R. R., Morgan, S. P., & Swicegood, G. (1988). First births in America: Changes in the timing of parenthood. Berkeley: University of California Press.
45.
Rindfuss, R. R., & VandenHeuvel, A. (1990). Cohabitation: A precursor to marriage or an alternative to being single? Population and Development Review, 16, 703-726.
46.
Sassler, S., & Schoen, R. (1999). The effect of attitudes and economic activity on marriage. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, 147-159.
47.
Schoen, R., & Owens, D. (1992). A further look at first marriages and first unions. In S. J. South & S. E. Tolnay (Eds.), The changing American family: Sociological and demographic perspectives (pp. 109-117). Boulder, CO: Westview.
48.
Schoen, R., & Weinick, R. (1993). Partner choice in marriages and cohabitations. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 408-414.
49.
South, S. J. (1991). Sociodemographic differentials in mate selection processes. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53, 928-940.
50.
South, S. J. (1993). Racial and ethnic differences in the desire to marry. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 357-370.
51.
Stevens, G., & Cho, H. H. (1985). Socioeconomic indexes and the new 1980 census occupational classification scheme. Social Science Research, 14, 142-168.
52.
Sweet, J., Bumpass, L., & Call, V. (1988). The design and content of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH Working Paper No. 1). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin.
53.
Thornton, A., Axinn, W. A., & Teachman, J. (1995). The influence of educational experiences on cohabitation and marriage in early adulthood. American Sociological Review, 60, 762-774.
54.
Thornton, A., & Camburn, D. (1989). Religious participation and adolescent sexual behavior and attitudes. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 641-653.
55.
Thornton, A., & Young-DeMarco, L. (2001). Four decades of trends in attitudes toward family issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63, 1009-1037.
56.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1992). Workers with low earnings: 1964-1990 (Current Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 178). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
57.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1998). Marital status and living arrangements: March 1998 (Update) (Current Population Reports, Series P20-514). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Wall, R. (1983). The household: Demographic and economic change in England, 1650-1970. In R. Wall (Ed.), Family forms in historic Europe. Social Science Research Council.
60.
Waite, L. J., Goldscheider, F. K., & Witsberger, C. (1986). Non-family living and the erosion of traditional family orientations among young adults. American Sociological Review, 51, 541-554.
61.
Waite, L. J., & Spitze, G. D. (1981). Young women’s transition to marriage. Demography, 18, 681-694.
62.
Whittington, L., & Peters, H. E. (1996). Economic incentives for financial and residential independence. Demography, 33, 82-97.
63.
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
64.
Wilson, W. J. (1997). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York: Knopf.
