GENDER COMPETITION AND FAMILY CHANGE
Robert Schoen
Department of Sociology
Pennsylvania State University
University Park PA 16802
February 2008
Support from NIH under grant R01 HD045309, “Family Formation in an Era of Family
Change” (PI Nancy Landale) is gratefully acknowledged, as is research assistance from
Claudia Nau and Kimberly Daniels, and comments on an earlier draft from Paul Amato,
Alan Booth, Jeffrey Dew, Bryndl Hohmann-Marriott, Susan McHale, and Stacy Rogers.
1
Gender Competition and Family Change
Abstract
Over the last 40 years, the United States and many other Western nations have
seen a major economic shift to the service sector, the large scale employment of women,
and attitudinal changes favoring gender equality and individual autonomy. Over the
same period, huge changes in family behavior have occurred, including a retreat from
marriage, a rise in cohabitation, and an upsurge in nonmarital fertility. Here the
argument is advanced that those macro socioeconomic and ideological changes are linked
to family changes through the micro mechanism of gender competition, i.e. partners
striving for status, power, and control within their relationship. Although complex social
changes are the result of many forces, it is argued that (1) alternative explanations of
family change are inadequate; (2) gender competition is real, widespread, and a powerful
force for change; (3) observed family changes can be seen in terms of the competitive
strategies men and women employed in relationships; and (4) in subgroups identified on
the basis of class and race, the extent of the retreat from marriage mirrors male/female
differentials in gender attitudes.
2
Gender Competition and Family Change
The last half century saw extraordinary changes in family behavior in most
Western countries (Axinn and Thornton 2000; Lesthaeghe 1995). Focusing on the
United States, this essay seeks to relate those changes to their social and economic
context. First, past economic and attitudinal changes are briefly described, as are some
major trends in family behavior. The argument is then made that the gender competition
unleashed by those macro socioeconomic and ideological changes is an important and
underappreciated factor that underlies family change.
Economic Transformation and Socioeconomic Change
As World War II receded into the past, Western nations saw their economies not
only grow but transform. Large, service-based tertiary sectors emerged, which grew to
dominate what would become post-industrial economies (see Table 1). Many of the new
jobs created were in areas considered “women’s work”, and women’s labor force
participation increased markedly over time. Women comprised a steadily increasing
fraction of the labor force, even at the prime childrearing ages and, on average, spent an
ever larger fraction of their lives in gainful employment. Women’s wages relative to
men’s also rose, from 61% in 1960 to 73% in 2000.
The demographic context was favorable to an increase in women’s employment.
As the Baby Boom ended in the early 1960s, American fertility fell from 3.6 children per
woman in 1960 to less than two in the 1970s, and has fluctuated near two since then.
Fewer children reduced the conflict between women’s labor force participation and
childrearing. In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States experienced a marriage squeeze,
as there were more women than men of marriageable age. As a result of that imbalance,
3
Schoen (1983) calculated that women’s average age at marriage increased by over 0.6
years between 1955 and 1970. Heer and Grossbard-Shechtman (1981) argued that the
marriage squeeze encouraged young women to remain in the labor force longer than they
might otherwise have.
Once the rise in women’s employment was underway, status competition may
have acted to promote further increases. As more and more families had two earners,
their consumption standards could exceed those of otherwise comparable one earner
families. In his classic exposition on the forces producing fertility declines, Kingsley
Davis (1963) argued that it was resistance to a relative loss of status that drove down
fertility rates. It is now commonplace to hear that families “need” two earners to “just
get by”. Such claims suggest that the one-earner/two-earner income discrepancy may
have fostered a status competition that drew nonworking women into the expanding labor
force.
Ideological Changes Regarding Family Behavior
As women entered the labor force in larger numbers and on a more permanent
basis, they encountered substantial discrimination in hiring, wages, and opportunities for
advancement. The Women’s Movement that began in the 1960s started as a reaction to
discrimination against women workers, and became part of a growing campaign for
gender equality.
The times were propitious for such a campaign. Heer and Grossbard-Shechtman
(1981) argued that the marriage squeeze against women reduced the “compensation” men
were obliged to pay women for their domestic services, and provided additional impetus
to the Women’s Movement. The oral contraceptive pill was introduced in 1960,
4
facilitating women’s ability to control their reproduction. In the 1970s, that ability was
further enhanced when legal abortion became readily available nearly everywhere in the
country. The extent of family control over adolescents and young adults began to decline
markedly (Rosenfeld 2006). The Western world in general was experiencing an
ideological shift toward greater individual autonomy. A complex of family related
attitudes and behaviors, termed the Second Demographic Transition, was observed
(Lesthaeghe 1995), which included increased secularism, a belief in individual freedom, a
rise in cohabitation and premarital sexual behavior, postponement of marriage and
parenthood, low fertility and increased childlessness, and a rise in nonmarital
childbearing.
The United States, despite some exceptional characteristics, appears to be an
exemplar of the Second Demographic Transition (Lesthaeghe and Neidert 2006). Table
2 shows that the U.S. experienced a shift in attitudes from the 1960s to the 1990s quite
consistent with that transition. The figures, assembled by Thornton and Young-DeMarco
(2001), come from three different surveys. The General Social Survey represents a
sample of the noninstitutionalized, English speaking population of the United States 24
years of age and older. The Study of American Families followed a cohort of persons
born in 1961 in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Monitoring the Future surveyed a
nationally representative sample of high school seniors. By the 1990s, Table 2 shows
that there was a great acceptance of premarital sex and cohabitation among both men and
women. About half of young men and women graduating from High School felt that
unmarried childbearing was either a worthwhile experiment or “doing one’s thing”;
scarcely a third expressed disapproval. These changes represented a major shift in family
5
values.
4. Trends and Differentials in Gender Attitudes
Despite those attitudinal shifts toward greater choice in family and reproductive
behavior, there has been resistance to the idea of gender equality. The Equal Rights
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution failed. The belief in male leadership did not
disappear among men nor, to a lesser extent, among women. Table 3 shows survey
results on the percent of men and women indicating egalitarian sex role attitudes
(Thornton and Young-DeMarco 2001). The three items are from Monitoring the Future,
and thus reflect the views of those on the threshold of their prime relationship formation
and reproductive years.
Egalitarian views generally increased over time, but there were substantial gender
differences even in 1997-98, the latest survey period shown. Half of all men felt that the
husband should make all important decisions in the family, and nearly two-thirds
believed that it is usually better if the man is the achiever outside the home and the
woman is the homemaker. Women had much more egalitarian views, but 2 out of 7
believed that it is usually better if the man is the achiever outside the home. Moreover,
on all three measures, the difference between the level of egalitarianism expressed by
high school senior men and women increased from 1976-77 to 1997-98. For example,
28% more women than men believed that the husband should not make all important
decisions in 1976-77, but 35% more women than men did so in 1997-98. Recent years
have seen a substantial divergence in the gender attitudes of men and women.
Gender attitudes are known to vary with both education and race/ethnicity (cf.
Cherlin 1999). Higher education has consistently been associated with men’s more
6
liberal attitudes and greater acceptance of gender equality (Blee and Tickamyer 1995;
Goldscheider and Waite 1991: 54-56). Compared to non-Hispanic Whites, African
Americans and Hispanic Americans are more likely to believe that the man should be the
head of the household and the primary economic provider (Bourgois 2003; Kane 2000;
Staples 1985; Taylor, Tucker and Mitchell-Kernan 1999). Although African American
men are less egalitarian in their outlook than White men, Black women do not
significantly differ from White women in their sex role attitudes (Ransford and Miller
1983). In general, the divergence in gender role attitudes between men and women is
greater among the less educated than the well educated, and more pronounced among
Blacks than among Whites.
Changes in Family Behavior
Table 4 shows how American family behavior changed as the Second
Demographic Transition proceeded. There was a steady decline in the proportion of men
and women ever marrying, from 96-97% in 1960 to 83-89% in 1995. At the same time,
the average age at first marriage increased by 5 or more years for both men and women.
In 1995, the smaller proportion that ever married entered marriage, on average, when
they were in their late 20s, not their early 20s. The proportion of marriages ending in
divorce rose sharply from 1960 to 1980, before plateauing at that high level. Since some
marriage dissolutions never result in a legal divorce, the proportion of marriages
disrupting is now likely close to one half.
The retreat from marriage was accompanied by a rise in cohabitation. Three out
of eight women born during the years 1965-69 cohabited before attaining age 25. In
1995, 49% of women aged 30-34 had cohabited (Bumpass and Lu 2000: Table 1). The
7
proportion of births outside of marriage also increased dramatically. From 1 birth in 20
in 1960, it rose to 1 in 3 in 1999.
The Role of Gender Competition
Changes in the structure of the American economy, and their social and
ideological consequences, have thus been accompanied by profound family changes.
Here, the argument is made that an important and underappreciated mechanism linking
those socioeconomic and ideological developments to family change is gender
competition.
Given the context of an intimate relationship between a man and a woman, the
term gender competition refers to contestations between them for status, power, and
control. It is a micro phenomenon that operates at the partner level, though in a context
that includes societal norms, beliefs, and practices. Gender competition includes striving
for an equal or leadership role, for greater authority in decision-making, and for a more
favorable division of housework and child care. Moreover, it encompasses the strategies
and tactics used to achieve those objectives and establish more advantageous terms of
trade in the relationship.
The basic structure of the argument is shown in Figure 1. There is no claim that
gender competition is the only force behind family change, or that each step of the
process inevitably follows from the preceding step. An emphasis on individual autonomy
can itself weaken marriage. Greater economic self-sufficiency implies that marriage is
less important for both men and women. Apart from gender competition, the increased
educational requirements of the labor market may well have lengthened time in school
for both men and women, pushing the age at marriage upward and possibly increasing
8
cohabitation (Oppenheimer 2003). More independence from parental supervision has
likely played a role as well (Rosenfeld 2006). Social change is invariably a complex and
multidimensional phenomenon, and there is no way to quantify the contribution of gender
competition. Instead, four more modest objectives are pursued. They are to show that
(1) the alternative explanations for family change that have been proposed are
inadequate; (2) gender competition is real, widespread; and has the capacity to produce
significant social change; (3) the observed changes in family behavior can usefully be
interpreted in terms of gender competition strategies, and (4) family change by class and
race mirrors the differentials in gender attitudes.
The Inadequacy of Alternative Explanations
A number of explanations for recent family changes have been offered in the
literature. The four principal approaches are examined in this section.
A leading explanation is the “Role Specialization” or “Specialization and
Trading” view advanced by Becker (1981), which uses an economic framework to argue
that the benefits of marriage are maximized when men specialize in economic activities
and women in domestic activities. The increase in women’s employment is seen as a
departure from optimum specialization that diminishes the gains to marriage, and hence
acts to discourage marriage and increase divorce. That view attracted a good deal of
attention, as increases in women’s employment were occurring while marriage was in
retreat and divorce was rising to record levels. Further analysis, however, revealed
serious problems with the Role Specialization idea. It frames the issue in terms of
unchanging social institutions, and is thus unable to explain such accompanying
institutional changes as the rise in cohabitation. In economic terms, Moffitt (2000)
9
criticized it for focusing on relative female/male wages while ignoring the sum of male
plus female wages. Doing so renders the net benefit of women’s employment
indeterminate instead of negative. Moreover, no serious case has been made that a
woman’s contribution to a marriage is maximized by a focus on homemaking.
Oppenheimer (1994) pointed out that in contemporary nuclear families specialization can
make the family vulnerable to the loss of a unique individual, so flexibility, even some
redundancy, may well be a better strategy. Although Becker’s argument claims that
marital conflict is likely when both husband and wife are employed, empirical evidence
has found that not to be true once prior marital quality is taken into account. Schoen,
Astone, Rothert, Standish and Kim (2002), using longitudinal data from the National
Survey of Families and Households, found that wives’ employment did not destabilize
happy marriages. Schoen, Rogers, and Amato (2006), using the same data set, found that
wives’ full time employment was associated with greater marital stability and had no
effect on marital quality.
A related explanation of the decline in marriage argues that when women achieve
economic independence, they will choose to be unmarried. Theoretically, Scanzoni
(1979) argued that need not be the case, as women could use their additional bargaining
power to negotiate a better marital relationship. Empirically, the “Independence” view
does not fit the facts. Women with more education, and thus more earnings potential, are
more likely to marry, not less (Schoen and Cheng 2006). Sweeney and Cancian (2004)
found that women’s earnings potential made them increasingly sought after in the
marriage market, and the review of the literature by White and Rogers (2000) found that
both men’s and women’s economic resources are positively related to marriage.
10
A third economic explanation focuses on men’s labor force experience (cf.
Moffitt 2001; Oppenheimer 1994). Men with less than a college education have had
stagnant or declining real wages for most of the past four decades, and that experience
may well have contributed to an increase in the age at marriage. Yet it does not follow
that other family changes such as the rise in cohabitation and nonmarital fertility would
ensue. The Depression of the 1930s and other periods of difficult economic conditions
did not have such effects. Moreover, as Ellwood and Jencks (2001) concluded, the
changes in the economic situation of men in the lower two-thirds of the educational
distribution are not able to explain much of the observed change in family behaviors.
A demographic explanation has also been offered, which sees a shortage of men
relative to women---i.e. a marriage squeeze---as a major factor in lower marriage and
higher nonmarital fertility (Lichter, LeClere, and McLaughlin 1991; South and Lloyd
1992). That argument has been made in particularly strong terms with regard to Blacks
(Darity and Myers 1995). Empirically, there does not seem to be any basis for such a
belief. The analysis in Schoen (1983), which indicated a marriage squeeze induced
increase in the average age at marriage between 1955 and 1970, found that the marriage
squeeze had minor effects after 1980 and never produced more than negligible changes in
the proportion ever marrying. A detailed study of the effects of sex composition on
marriage behavior in North Carolina and Virginia between 1970 and 1980 by Schoen and
Kluegel (1988) found that, for both Blacks and Whites, composition played a very minor
role. For Blacks, the sex ratio argument is frequently put in terms of a shortage of
“marriageable” (i.e. employed) men (Wilson 1987). That restatement, however, casts the
issue in terms of suitability rather than availability, a very different matter.
11
In sum, the literature does not reveal an alternative explanation capable of
producing the observed family changes. We thus further explore the gender competition
approach in order to examine its potential influence, interpretive value, and consistency
with the available evidence.
The Reality of Gender Competition
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (2007: 1), in the article based on her 2006 Presidential
Address to the American Sociological Association, wrote that “Categorization based on
sex is the most basic social divide. It is the organizational basis of most major
institutions, including the division of labor in the home, the workforce, politics, and
religion.” In the framework advanced by Portes (2006), changes in such fundamental
structures as the nature of the relationship between men and women tap deep cultural
values, with the potential to generate forces that can transform social institutions and
social practices. A noteworthy example is the penetrating analysis of the abortion
controversy by Luker (1984), which described how a threat to the centrality of women’s
role as housewife and mother had (and continues to have) profound social and political
reverberations.
Before the 1960s, American marriages were largely characterized by an exchange
of the husband’s breadwinning activities for the wife’s homemaking services. Such a
pattern of exchange has by no means disappeared, but the rise in women’s labor force
participation has made it far less common. Yet despite the growth of women’s economic
power and the spread of the ideology of gender equality, marriage and family life remain
strongly gendered. One of the family’s core functions is sexual reproduction. Wilcox
and Nock (2006) found that both husbands and wives still value gendered relationships,
12
and that women are not happier in marriages characterized by egalitarian practices and
beliefs.
A striking illustration is the phenomenon of “doing gender”. The gender
differential in hours of household labor has narrowed somewhat, but women still do most
of the housework. Brines (1994) found that the generally observed inverse relationship
between housework and paid employment breaks down when the husband earns less than
the wife. Economically dependent husbands do less housework when they are more
reliant on their wives’ income. In effect, gender is “done” in that the husband’s
shortcomings as a provider are offset by a reinforcement of the wife’s homemaker role.
Those empirical findings have largely been replicated in subsequent work (e.g. Bittman et
al 2003; Fenstermaker and West 2002; Greenstein 2000). The analysis of Greenstein
(2000) characterized the wife’s enhanced contribution to housework as a gender display
that acted to neutralize the “deviance” represented by her higher earnings. The study of
Bittman et al (2003) spoke of gender “trumping” money. In contrast to the ideology of
gender equality, doing gender represents an acknowledgment that the woman should be
the primary homemaker. Discord is avoided by a public display of a gendered division of
labor on the part of women with the greatest economic resources to resist such a division
of labor.
Two prominent features of contemporary family life emphasize differences
between men and women. The first is that while it is generally acceptable for a woman
either to be in the labor market or to be a homemaker, all men are expected to be
gainfully employed. The second is that, barring compelling evidence to the contrary,
children are seen as belonging with their mother. These views are widely held by both
13
men and women across the social spectrum, and have far-reaching consequences. Men
who do not have a steady job are simply not considered suitable marriage partners.
Should the relationship between mother and father dissolve---and most current
relationships do---the children are likely to go with their mother. That prospect can
weaken the ties between fathers and their children. Two more implications can be drawn.
First, those gendered features reinforce the economic role of men and the noneconomic
role of women in family life. Second, those societally inconsistent views regarding
gender equality (i.e. men and women are equal, but women are privileged with regard to
their children) can promote gender competition and lead to discord between partners.
There is nothing new about gender competition or struggles for power in
relationships. The “battle between the sexes” is an old cliché. Waller (1937) wrote about
the Principle of Least Interest, which enables the less involved or less dependent partner
to exert power by threatening to leave the relationship. A consistent research finding is
that power in relationships flows from resources. Those resources may be of many
different kinds, including personality, intelligence, and social ties, but they most certainly
include economic means (cf. Blood and Wolfe 1960; Scanzoni and Scanzoni 1981).
The increased employment of women, and the additional financial resources that
brought them, changed the power dynamics in many relationships. Women were able to
compete more effectively for a greater role in decision-making and a more favorable
division of housework. At the same time, the gender attitudes of men and women were
diverging in an unprecedented fashion (cf. Table 3). That combination may well have led
to a dramatic broadening of the areas being contested. In particular, the rise of
cohabitation meant that the form of the relationship itself was up for negotiation.
14
A central argument made here is that many men did respond competitively to the
changed economic, social, and ideological situation. As is explored further in the next
section, men with advantages in economic resources could strive to bring them to bear. If
marriage as an institution limited men’s freedom and imposed long term obligations,
alternative institutional settings could be favored. Cohabitations and nonresidential
relationships that proved unsatisfactory could be terminated without legal proceedings. If
relationships were unstable and children stay with their mother, fathers could devote
fewer resources to them. Of course, strategies can provoke counter-strategies. If women
anticipate less support from men, they could strive to be economically self-sufficient. If
men cannot be relied upon as marriage partners, women wanting children could have
them without marrying.
Goldscheider and Waite (1991: xv) noted that the profound shift in women’s
employment made it seem that only women’s lives were different, leading many
observers to try and explain family change solely in terms of women’s behavior. I agree
that such a view is fundamentally mistaken. Given the extensive literature on gendered
institutions and male dominance, it should be evident that men’s attitudes and behavior
must have played a critical role. There simply has been a lack of attention paid to men’s
responses, and the increasing ability of men to choose from a wider array of family
options. A significant exception is the work of Le Bourdais and Lapierre-Adamcyk
(2004), which argued with respect to Quebec that a shift away from marriage and toward
cohabitation can be seen as rooted in the redefinition of men’s and women’s roles in
conjugal relationships and the struggle for equality between men and women.
15
Discord between partners is quite likely in relationships characterized by low
levels of commitment, limited sharing of resources, and struggles for control.
Sociodemographic data reflect that many unions do in fact encounter difficulties. The
likelihood of divorce rose until the early 1980s and has remained close to 50% ever since,
despite the shift to a later age at first marriage (which is associated with a lower risk of
divorce). Marital quality remained constant between 1980 and 2000 (Amato, Johnson,
Booth, and Rogers 2003), even though persons likely to have poorer marital quality may
well have been in cohabitations, not marriages. Cohabitations between persons without
plans to marry are known to have significantly poorer relationship quality than marriages
(Brown and Booth 1996). Furthermore, while most cohabitations are still short-lived, the
proportion of cohabitations that become marriages has declined substantially (Schoen,
Landale and Daniels (2007).
In the United States, ethnographic work has revealed that distrust between men
and women runs deep in many poor communities. Edin and Kefalas (2005) studied poor
White, Black, and Hispanic women in the greater Philadelphia area, and found that social
class, not race/ethnicity, was the key factor. Women were reluctant to marry, and
typically had a profound suspicion of men. They reported that men would not keep their
promises of support, spending money on themselves but not their families, and defaulting
on their obligations to provide for their children. The women were determined not to be
economically dependent on a man, and had no interest in marrying a man who did not
have resources and a job. Children, however, were a necessity, “the best of what life
offers” (p170). The women were not ignorant of birth control. While births were
16
generally not planned, they were rather allowed to happen and almost always welcomed.
Adoption was generally frowned upon, and abortion seen as a tragedy.
Anderson (1999) studied a predominately Black inner city area in Philadelphia,
and provided more from a male perspective. Young men gained respect from fathering
children and dominating their girl friends, but not from establishing a long term
relationship with a woman or from limiting their own freedom to pursue other
relationships or spend their money as they pleased. Relationships between young men
and women often took the form of a “game”, where he got prestige from getting a woman
to bear his child, while she got a child that was hers. There was a clear understanding on
the part of both men and women that the child belonged to the mother. A good father
saw himself as contributing to his child’s support, but considered that task to be the
primary responsibility of the mother.
Bourgois (2003) studied a disadvantaged Puerto Rican community in East
Harlem, New York, and found a misogynistic street culture. He reported that men did not
accept the new rights and roles that women had obtained, and desperately tried to reassert
their grandfathers’ lost autocratic control over their households and public areas. Street
culture celebrated the cacheteando or gigolo, who lived off his girlfriends. Women did
not expect a man to support his children, but rather felt it was his responsibility to support
the children of the woman he was with.
In the 1950s and 1960s, poverty was very real in many parts of America, but the
overwhelming majority of men and women married. The husband was usually the
primary earner, and in most cases the couple raised their children together. The
ethnographies of the time (e.g. Komarovsky 1964; Rubin 1976) focused on working class
17
families. They found them beset with problems, but resilient. That earlier pattern stands
in stark contrast to the fragile unions found by Anderson (1999), Bourgois (2003), and
Edin and Kefalas (2005). Gender competition, and the discord between partners that it
spawned, not poverty, appears to be the crucial difference.
Family Change as a Reflection of Gender Competition
The continuing economic disparity between the earnings of men and women
stands in sharp contrast to the ideology of equality, and can directly influence the nature
of relationships. Men (or women) who provide more than half of the resources of a
partnership might well question why they should receive only half of the benefits of that
partnership. Marriage is a formal union with many legal restrictions and normative
prescriptions that substantially limit individual autonomy. Cohabitation can provide
many of the same benefits as marriage, but allows greater individual autonomy and
avoids long term commitments and obligations (cf. Rindfuss and VandenHeuvel 1990).
Cohabiters have many different motivations, so any generalizations about them must be
qualified. As an institutional structure, however, cohabitation provides a context where a
belief in gender equality can be reconciled with economic inequality. Either partner is
free to leave at any time. No formal rules constrain them, but none provide support to the
one with fewer resources. Cohabiters are less likely to pool financial resources than
married persons (Oropesa, Landale and Kenkre 2003; Treas 1993; Winkler 1997), and
can thus withhold resources more easily. Thus cohabitation allows the partner with
greater resources, most often but not necessarily the man, to take a de facto leadership
position in what is ostensibly an equal relationship (Schoen and Owens 1992).
18
The rise in nonmarital fertility can also be viewed as a consequence of divergent
male and female strategies. Men who withhold resources as a means of gaining leverage
in a relationship may be particularly reluctant to invest in children to whom their ties are
tenuous (Selzer 2000; Willis and Haaga 1996). Nonmarital fertility can, in effect, be a
way to transfer childrearing costs from men to women. Still, nonmarital fertility is the
only apparent option available to women who want children but do not expect to find a
suitable marriage partner. The barriers to out-of-wedlock childbearing have diminished
as nonmarital births have become more common and women’s economic position has
improved relative to men’s. Children can confer considerable benefits to unwed mothers
(Astone, Nathanson, Schoen, and Kim 1999; Fernandez-Kelly 1993). Women for whom
the social resource value of children is high are more likely to have a child out-ofwedlock than are women for whom the social resource value of children is low (Schoen
and Tufis 2003). Moreover, the lack of a husband can leave the mother in complete
control of her children. Ethnographic work by Nelson (2006) shows that single mothers
take the “mother-in-charge” role very seriously, and fight to preserve their hold on it.
In sum, the gender competition perspective can direct attention to the strategies
men and women pursue in relationships and to see family changes as consequences
(intended or not) of those strategies. Cohabitation is a relationship form consistent with
both the ideology of gender equality and the reality of unequal economic resources.
Nonmarital fertility expresses individual autonomy, while relieving men of much of the
economic burden of caring for their children and allowing women exclusive control over
their offspring.
Differentials in Family Change in the Light of Gender Competition
19
As noted earlier, differences in gender attitudes are greater for Hispanic
Americans and Blacks than for Whites, and are greater among the less educated than
among the more educated. Let us now consider how the changes in family behavior
shown in Table 4 vary by social class and by race/ethnicity.
Schoen and Cheng (2006) examined the proportion ever marrying, by gender,
race, and educational level, in North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin around 1990.
Whites were more likely to marry than Blacks. Typically, those with 16 or more years of
education were the most likely to marry, followed by those with 12 years of education,
those with 13-15 years of education, and finally those with less than 12 years of
education. The same patterns emerged when race and education were considered
together. Among White women with 16 or more years of education, 91-96% married,
while among Black women with less than 12 years of education only 37-59% married.
For cohabitations, Bumpass and Lu (2000: Table 2) reported a generally inverse
relationship between educational level and the percent of women ever cohabiting; those
with the least education cohabited substantially more. The relationship between
race/ethnicity and cohabitation is less clear, with different orderings found in different
studies (cf. Bumpass and Lu 2000; McLanahan et al 2001). In terms of the probability
that a cohabitation leads to marriage, Blacks have the lowest proportion of the three
groups (Lichter, Qian, and Mellott 2006). Cohabitation accelerates the transition to
marriage for premaritally pregnant White women, has no effect for Black women, and
has a negative effect for Puerto Rican women (Manning and Landale 1996).
The risk of a nonmarital birth has long been known to vary inversely with
educational level (Ermisch 2001; Kaye 2001; Schoen and Tufis 2003), as women with
20
low levels of education are much more likely to have children out-of-wedlock.
Substantial differences have also been found by race/ethnicity. In 1999, 22% of nonHispanic White births, 42% of Hispanic births, and 69% of non-Hispanic Black births
were out-of-wedlock in the U.S. (Ventura and Bachrach 2000: Table 4).
In short, there is a striking similarity between male/female differences in gender
attitudes and the nature of family change. In groups where gender beliefs diverge more,
there is less marriage and more nonmarital fertility. That “dose-response” relationship is
consistent with the view that gender competition and consequent discord is related to the
retreat from marriage.
The pattern observed among Blacks is particularly telling, as that group has had
the greatest decline in marriage and highest level of nonmarital fertility. Black men have
also been particularly disadvantaged by racial discrimination and by the sectoral shift that
eliminated many high wage blue collar jobs in the industrial sector. In that regard,
Hatchett, Veroff, and Douvan (1995:208) forcefully wrote
Black men and women have long experienced dissonance surrounding
mainstream gender roles. They have lived in a society where men were supposed
to have more power in both private and public spheres, and where women were to
be provided for and protected. But this has not been their reality. For a long time,
black men were symbolically, and at times literally, castrated by racial
oppression. Power in the home, thus, became particularly important for black
men. However, black women could often find work (although typically menial)
when black men could not. As a consequence, black women have historically had
a more significant economic role in families than their white counterparts. The
21
fact that these egalitarian patterns are now becoming acceptable has not lessened
the significance of this gender issue among blacks. … Our analyses suggest that
this issue is so central that it places black marriages at risk.
The gender competition perspective, by interpreting the especially large changes that
have occurred in African American families in terms of the historical processes that
produced their particularly high levels of gender strife, makes it possible to understand
changes in the Black family in terms of the same forces that have propelled family
change throughout American society since 1960.
Summary and Conclusions
In the inaugural issue of the journal Population, Jean Stoetzel (1946: 88) wrote
that “demographic behavior, like all human phenomena, must be interpreted as the result
of the general dual processes of competition and cooperation that characterize the
struggle for life” [translated by the author]. The balance between competition and
cooperation can be a delicate one, so it is no small thing to alter the terms of trade
between men and women.
The thesis advanced here is diagrammed in Figure 1, and argues that (i) macro
socioeconomic restructuring has led to (ii) ideological changes which have (iii) generated
gender competition that (iv) has produced large scale family change. While
acknowledging that gender competition is by no means the only cause of family change,
it is argued that its importance has been greatly underestimated. Four points have been
stressed: (1) other proposed explanations for family change are inadequate to explain
observed changes; (2) gender competition is real, widespread, and a potent force for
change; (3) observed family changes can be interpreted as the consequences of gender
22
competition strategies; and (4) the retreat from marriage by class and race closely
parallels differentials in gender attitudes.
Given the complexity of social change and the forces producing it, no quantitative
assessment can be made of the importance of gender competition in bringing about the
family changes of the past half century. However, the validity of the arguments
presented can be examined in terms of the three “essential” criteria supportive of causal
inference in demographic change advanced by Ni Bhrolchain and Dyson (2007): “time
order”, “mechanism”, and “no alternative”. The causal process described in Figure 1
meets those three criteria. The rise in gender competition was preceded by substantial
socioeconomic and ideological changes, and began before large scale family change.
Mechanisms relating socioeconomic and ideological change to gender competition have
been described, as have the links between gender competition and the retreat of marriage.
The principal alternative explanations for family change---role specialization, economic
independence, male economic stagnation, and marriage market imbalances---have been
considered and found to be wanting.
More research is needed to fully understand the dynamics of gender competition,
its causes and consequences, and its relationship to other causal processes. Economic
factors have played a pivotal role in family change. Here it is argued that they acted
principally through social processes, especially competition for status and power in
intimate relationships. However, the extent to which economic factors directly
influenced family change remains an important research question. Psychological and
emotional factors are likely to be important as well. Erving Goffman (1977: 315) saw
gender identity as “the deepest sense of what one is.” The Second Demographic
23
Transition may well have affected the gender identity of both men and women, and such
effects need to be explored. The present argument is based on American experience, but
may apply to much of Europe and overseas Europe as well (cf. Kalmijn 2007). Further
ethnographic work, with men and women of all social classes and race/ethnic groups,
could be invaluable in understanding the beliefs and motivations reshaping family life.
Most of the burden in balancing cooperation and competition in a relationship is
now borne by the partners. They have considerable flexibility in doing so, but the task is
not a simple one. One key question every couple must still grapple with is an old and
very fundamental one: “Who’s the boss?”
24
References
Amato, P.R., Johnson, D.R., Booth, A., and Rogers, S.J. (2003). Continuity and change
in marital quality between 1980 and 2000. Journal of Marriage and Family 65:
1-22.
Anderson, E.(1999). Code of the street. New York: Norton.
Axinn, W.G. and Thornton, A. (2000). The transformation in the meaning of marriage.
Pp. 147-65 in L.J. Waite (ed), The ties that bind. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Becker, G.S. (1981). A treatise on the family (enlarged ed). Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Bittman, M., England, P., Sayer, L., Folbre, N., and Matheson, G. (2003). When does
gender trump money? Bargaining and time in household work. American Journal
of Sociology 109: 186-214.
Blee, K.M. and Tickamyer, A.R. (1995). Racial differences in men’s attitudes about
women’s gender roles. Journal of Marriage and the Family 57: 21-30.
Blood, R.O. Jr. and Wolfe, D.M. (1960). Husbands and wives. New York: Free Press.
Bourgois, P. (2003). In search of respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. (2d ed) New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Brines, J. (1994). Economic dependency, gender, and the division of labor at home.
American Journal of Sociology 100: 652-88.
Brown, S.L. and Booth, A. (1996). Cohabitation versus marriage: A comparison of
relationship quality. Journal of Marriage and the Family 58: 668-78.
Bumpass, L. and Lu, H-H. (2000). Trends in cohabitation and implications for children’s
family contexts in the United States. Population Studies 54: 29-41.
25
Cherlin, A.J. (1999). Public and private families: An introduction. (2d ed) Boston:
McGraw-Hill.
Ciecka, J., Donley, T., and Goldman, J. (1995). A Markov process model of worklife
expectancies based on labor market activity in 1992-93. Journal of Legal
Economics (winter).
Ciecka, J., Donley, T., and Goldman, J. (1999-2000). A Markov process model of
worklife expectancies based on labor market activity in 1997-98. Journal of Legal
Economics (winter).
Davis, K. (1963). The theory of change and response in modern demographic history.
Population Index 29: 344-66.
Edin, K. and Kefalas, M. (2005). Promises I can keep. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Ellwood, D.T. and Jencks, C. (2001). The growing differences in family structure: What
do we know? Where do we look for answers? NBER Working Paper. Cambridge
MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Epstein, C.F. (2007). Great divides: The cultural, cognitive, and social bases of the global
subordination of women. American Sociological Review 72: 1-22.
Ermisch, J. (2001). Cohabitation and childbearing outside marriage in Britain. Pp. 109-39
in L.L. Wu and B. Wolfe (eds) Out of wedlock: Causes and consequences of
nonmarital fertility. New York: Russell Sage.
Fenstermaker, S. and West, C. (2002). Doing gender, doing difference. New York:
Routledge.
26
Fernandez-Kelly, M.P. (1993). Towanda’s triumph: social and cultural capital in the
urban ghetto. Unpublished manuscript, Johns Hopkins University Institute for
Policy Studies and Department of Sociology, Baltimore.
Fullerton, H.N. (1999). Labor force participation: 75 years of change 1950-1998 and
1998-2025. Monthly Labor Review. 122 (winter).
Goffman, E. (1977). The arrangement between the sexes. Theory and Society 4:301-31.
Goldscheider, F.K. and Waite, L.J. (1991). New families, no families? Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Greenstein, T.N. (2000). Economic dependence, gender, and the division of labor in the
home: A replication and extension. Journal of Marriage and the Family 62: 32235.
Hatchett, S., Veroff, J. and Douvan, E. (1995). Marital instability among black and white
couples in early marriage. Pp. 177-218 in M.B. Tucker and C. Mitchell-Kernan,
The decline in marriage among African Americans. New York: Russell Sage.
Heer, D.M. and Grossbard-Shechtman, A. (1981). The impact of the female marriage
squeeze and the contraceptive revolution on sex roles and the women’s liberation
movement in the United States, 1960 to 1975. Journal of Marriage and the
Family 43: 49-65.
International Labor Organization. (2000). LABORSTA. Available on the internet at
http://laborsta.ilo.org, downloaded February 8, 2007.
Kalmijn, M. (2007). Explaining cross-national differences in marriage, cohabitation, and
divorce in Europe, 1990-2000. Population Studies 61: 243-63.
27
Kane, E.W. (2000). Racial and ethnic variations in gender-related attitudes. Annual
Review of Sociology 26: 419-39.
Kaye, K. (2001). Differences in nonmarital childbearing across states. Pp. 49-76 in L.L.
Wu and B. Wolfe (eds) Out of wedlock: Causes and consequences of nonmarital
fertility. New York: Russell Sage.
Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue collar marriage. New York: Random House.
Le Bourdais, C. and Lapierre-Adamcyk, E. (2004). Changes in conjugal life in Canada: Is
cohabitation progressively replacing marriage? Journal of Marriage and Family
66: 929-42.
Lesthaeghe, R. (1995). The second demographic transition in Western countries: An
interpretation. Pp. 17-62 in K.O. Mason and A-M Jensen, Gender and family
change in industrialized countries. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lesthaeghe, R.J. and Neidert, L. (2006). The second demographic transition in the United
States: Exception or textbook example? Population and Development Review 32:
669-98.
Lichter, D.T., LeClere, F.B. and McLaughlin, D.K. (1991). Local marriage markets and
the marital behavior of black and white women. American Journal of Sociology
96: 843-67.
Lichter, D.T., Qian, Z., and Mellott, L.M. (2006). Marriage or dissolution? Union
transitions among poor cohabiting women. Demography 43: 223-40.
Luker, K. (1984). Abortion and the politics of motherhood. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
28
Manning, W.D. and Landale, N.S. (1996). Racial and ethnic differences in the role of
cohabitation in premarital childbearing. Journal of Marriage and the Family 58:
63-77.
McLanahan, S. (2004). Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second
demographic transition. Demography 41: 607-27.
McLanahan, S., Garfinkel, I., Reichman, N.E. and Teitler, J.O. (2001). Pp. 202-28 in L.L.
Wu and B. Wolfe (eds) Out of wedlock: Causes and consequences of nonmarital
fertility. New York: Russell Sage.
Moffitt, R.A. (2000). Female wages, male wages, and the economic model of marriage:
The basic evidence. Pp. 302-19 in L.J. Waite (ed) The ties that bind. New York:
Aldine de Gruyter.
Moffitt, R.A. (2001). Welfare benefits and female headship in U.S. time series. Pp. 14372 in L.L. Wu and B. Wolfe (eds) Out of wedlock: Causes and consequences of
nonmarital fertility. New York: Russell Sage.
Nelson, M.K. (2006). Single mothers “do” family. Journal of Marriage and Family 68:
781-95.
Ni Bhrolchain, M. and Dyson, T. (2007). On causation in demography: Issues and
illustrations. Population and development Review 33: 1-36.
O’Neill, J. and Polachek, S. (1993). Why the gender gap in wages narrowed in the 1980s.
Journal of Labor Economics 11: 205-28.
Oppenheimer, V.K. (1994). Women’s rising employment and the future of the family in
industrial societies. Population and Development Review 20: 293-342.
29
Oppenheimer, V.K. (2003). Cohabiting and marriage during young men’s careerdevelopment process. Demography 40: 127-49.
Oropesa, R.S., Landale, N.S. and Kenkre, T. (2003). Income allocation in marital and
cohabiting unions: The case of mainland Puerto Ricans. Journal of Marriage and
Family 65: 910-26.
Portes, A. (2006). Institutions and development: A conceptual reanalysis. Population and
Development Review 32: 233-62.
Raley, R.K. (2000). Recent trends and differentials in marriage and cohabitation: The
United States. Pp. 19-39 in L.J. Waite (ed) The ties that bind. New York: Aldine
de Gruyter.
Ransford, H.E. and Miller, J. (1983). Race, sex, and feminist outlooks. American
Sociological Review 48: 46-59.
Rindfuss, R.R. and VandenHeuvel, A. (1990). Cohabitation: A precursor to marriage or
an alternative to being single? Population and Development Review 16: 703-26.
Rosenfeld, M.J. (2006). Young adulthood as a factor in social change in the United
States. Population and Development Review 32: 27-51.
Rubin, L.B. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working class family. New York: Basic
Books.
Scanzoni, J. (1979). A historical perspective on husband-wife bargaining power and
marital dissolution. Pp. 20-36 in G. Levinger and O.C. Moles Divorce and
separation. New York: Basic Books.
Scanzoni, L.D. and Scanzoni, J. (1981). Men, women, and change (2d ed). New York:
McGraw-Hill.
30
Schoen, R. (1983). Measuring the tightness of a marriage squeeze. Demography 20: 6178.
Schoen, R., Astone, N.M., Rothert, K., Standish, N.J. and Kim, Y.J. (2002). Women’s
employment, marital happiness, and divorce. Social Forces 81: 643-62.
Schoen, R. and Cheng, Y-H.A. (2006). Partner choice and the differential retreat from
marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family 68: 1-10.
Schoen, R. and Kluegel, J.R. (1988). The widening gap in Black and White marriage
rates: The impact of population composition and differential marriage
propensities. American Sociological Review 53: 895-907.
Schoen, R., Landale, N.S. and Daniels, K. (2007). Family transitions in young adulthood.
Demography, November, forthcoming.
Schoen, R. and Nelson, V.E. (1974). Marriage, divorce, and mortality: A life table
analysis. Demography 11: 267-90.
Schoen, R. and Owens, D. ( 1992). A further look at first unions and first marriages. Pp.
109-117 in S.J. South and S.J. Tolnay (eds) The changing American family:
Sociological and demographic perspectives. Boulder CO: Westview Press.
Schoen, R., Rogers, S.J. and Amato, P.R. (2006). Wives’ employment and spouses’
marital happiness: Assessing the direction of influence using longitudinal couple
data. Journal of Family Issues 27: 506-28.
Schoen, R. and Standish, N. (2001). The retrenchment of marriage: Results from marital
status life tables for the United States, 1995. Population and Development Review
27: 553-63.
31
Schoen, R. and Tufis, P. (2003). Precursors of nonmarital fertility in the United States.
Journal of Marriage and Family 65: 1030-40.
Selzer, J.A. (2000). Families formed outside of marriage. Journal of Marriage and the
Family 62: 1247-68.
Sobek, M. (2001). New statistics on the U.S. labor force, 1850-1990. Historical Methods
34: 71-87.
South, S.J. and Lloyd, K.M. (1992). Marriage markets and nonmarital fertility in the
United States. Demography 29: 247-64.
Staples, R. (1985). Changes in black family structure: The conflict between family
ideology and structural conditions. Journal of marriage and the Family 47: 100513.
Stoetzel, J. (1946). Sociologie et démographie. Population 1:79-89.
Sweeney, M.M. and Cancian, M. (2004). The changing importance of White women’s
economic prospects for assortative mating. Journal of Marriage and Family 66:
1015-28.
Taylor, P.L., Tucker, M.B. and Mitchell-Kernan, C. (1999). Ethnic variations in
perceptions of men’s provider role. Psychology of Women Quarterly 23: 741-61.
Thornton, A. and 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 Family 63: 1009-37.
Treas, J. (1993). Money in the bank: Transaction costs and the economic organization of
marriage. American Sociological Review 58: 723-34.
32
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (1986). Worklife estimates: Race and education. Bulletin
#2254. Washington DC: US Government.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (1997). BLS Handbook of Methods, Bulletin #2490.
Washington DC: US Government.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2002). Money and income in the United States. Series P-60, No.
209. Washington DC: US Government.
Ventura, S.J. and Bachrach, C.A. (2000). Nonmarital childbearing in the United States,
1940-99. National Vital Statistics Reports Vol 48, No 16. Hyattsville MD:
National Center for Health Statistics.
Waller, W. (1937). The rating-dating complex. American Sociological Review 2: 727-35.
White, L. and Rogers, S.J. (2000). Economic circumstances and family outcomes: A
review of the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and Family 62: 1035-51.
Wilcox, W.B. and Nock, S.L. (2006). What’s love got to do with it? Equality, equity,
commitment and women’s marital quality. Social Forces 84: 1321-45.
Willis, R.J. and Haaga, J.G. (1996). Economic approaches to understanding nonmarital
fertility. Pp. 67-86 in J.B. Casterline, R.D. Lee and K.A. Foote (eds), Fertility in
the United States: New Patterns, new theories. New York: Population Council.
Wilson, W.J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Winkler, A.E. (1997). Economic decision-making by cohabitors: Findings regarding
income pooling. Applied Economics 29: 1079-90.
33
Figure 1: A Schematic of Socioeconomic, Ideological, and
Family Change
Socioeconomic change
—————— (rise of the service sector –––––––––
|
and of women’s employment)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
↓
|
|
Ideological changes
|
|
———(belief in gender equality
|
|
|
and individual autonomy)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
↓
|
|
|
Gender competition
|
|
|
for status and power ←––––––––––
|
|
in relationships
|
| (varying by class, race/ethnicity)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
↓
|
|
Family change
|
–––→ (retreat of marriage and rise
|
of cohabitation and
––––––––––––→ nonmarital fertility)
34
Table 1. Indicators of Change in the Economy of the United States, 19602000
Measure
Year
1980
1960
1970
1990
2000
1. Fraction of labor force
in manufacturing sector
.27
.26
.22
.18
.15
2. Fraction of labor force
in service sector
.33
.40
.46
.52
.53
3. Women as fraction of
civilian labor force
.33
.38
.43
.45
.464
4. Fraction of women
aged 25-34 in
labor force
.36
.45
.66
.74
.76
5. Expectation of working
life for
a. men
b. women
—
—
37.3
21.3
36.81
27.21
36.02
30.02
36.93
31.63
6. Full-time women’s
wages as a fraction of
full-time men’s wages
.61
.59
.60
.72
.73
Notes: 1. Refers to the years 1979-80; 2. refers to the years 1992-93; 3. refers to the
years 1997- 98; 4. refers to the year 1998.
Sources:
Line 1, Sobek (2001: Table 4), International Labor Organization (2007: Table 1c);
Line 2, Fullerton (1999); Lines 3 and 4, US Bureau of Labor Statistics (1997); Line 5,
(1970,80) US Bureau of Labor Statistics (1986), (1992-3, 1997-8) Ciecka et al (1995,
1999-2000); Line 6, O’Neill and Polachek (1993), US Census Bureau (2002)
35
Table 2. Attitudes Toward Family Related Issues, by Gender, United States 1972-98
Women
Percent Agreeing
Men____________
1972/74 1977-78 1985-86 1989-90 1993-94 1996/98
1. Premarital sex is
always or almost
always wrong (%)
56.4
2. Cohabitation is
all right (%)
50.0
44.4
42.6
42.1
1972/74 1977-78 1985-86 1989-90 1993-94 1996/98
40.0
46.0
37.2
33.2
32.0
31.9
1980
1985
1993
1980
1985
1993
44.4
56.6
64.2
59.4
69.4
71.8
1976-77 1980-81 1985-86 1989-90 1993-94 1997-98
29.8
1976-77 1980-81 1985-86 1989-90 1993-94 1997-98
3. Live together good idea
33.0
33.3
39.3
47.9
51.2
59.1
46.9
42.3
53.1
58.4
61.6
66.9
4. Unmarried childbearing is
a. a worthwhile experiment/
doing own thing (%)
37.1
34.5
45.5
49.0
54.0
52.8
46.5
47.9
46.5
46.7
50.5
49.7
b. destructive to society/
violates moral principle (%) 47.7
50.2
40.8
36.3
33.6
34.9
41.4
40.1
40.7
39.6
34.8
36.3
c. None of the above (%)
15.2
13.6
14.5
12.4
12.2
12.0
11.9
12.8
13.8
14.8
14.0
15.2
NOTE: Item 1 is based on responses to the General Social Survey; Item 2 refers to daughters and sons in the Study of American
Families; and Items 3 and 4 are from the Monitoring the Future Survey.
Source: Adapted from Thornton and Young-DeMarco (2001: Tables 4, 5, 6, and 8)
36
Table 3. Percent of Respondents Indicating Egalitarian Sex Role Attitudes, by Gender, United States 1976-98
Women
1976-77
Men
1980-81
1985-86
1989-90 1993-94 1997-98
1976-77 1980-81 1985-86 1989-90 1993-94 1997-98
1. Husband should (not) make
all important decisions
71.9
74.7
81.3
83.8
84.8
44.1
2. Usually better if the man
is the achiever and the
woman the homemaker
(disagree)
42.1
50.5
64.3
71.4
74.4
71.4
17.3
25.5
32.2
36.5
39.7
36.7
3. A woman’s job takes
away from her relationship
with her husband (disagree) 83.5
81.8
84.2
84.4
85.7
84.6
63.1
68.1
63.7
62.8
67.6
63.2
84.9
Note: Items 1-3 are based on the Monitoring the Future Survey;
Source: Adapted from Thornton and Young-DeMarco (2001: Table 1)
37
47.3
46.1
47.6
49.4
49.4
Table 4. Changes in American Family Behavior, 1960-99
1.
2.
3.
1960
1970
1980
1988
1995
.96
.97
.96
.97
.89
.91
.84
.88
.83
.89
Average age at
first marriage
a. men
b. women
23.6
21.3
23.4
21.8
26.3
24.1
27.5
25.1
28.6
26.6
Proportion of
marriages ending
in divorce
a. men
b. women
.26
.26
.37
.36
Proportion ever
marrying (of those
surviving to age 15)
a. men
b. women
4. Proportion of women
ever cohabiting by
age 25
5. Proportion of
births out-of-wedlock
.44
.43
1975-79
1980-84
.18
.29
.43
.43
1985-89
.34
.44
.43
1990-94
.38
1960
1970
1980
1990
1999
.05
.11
.18
.28
.33
Notes: Lines 1-3 based on marital status life tables for the year indicated. In
Line 4, the years reflect the experience of cohorts born 1950-54, 1955-59, 1960-64, and
1965-69.
Sources: Lines 1-3, Schoen and Nelson (1974), Schoen and Standish (2001); Line
4, Raley (2000); Line 5, Ventura and Bachrach (2000)
38