Journal
JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
Volume 80, Issue 4, Pages 791-811Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12481
Keywords
employment; incarceration; marriage; social demography
Categories
Funding
- Washington Center for Equitable Growth
- Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
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Rates of entry into first marriage have declined sharply in the United States during the past half century, and there is evidence of broad gaps in marriage entry by race and education. Although a large literature explores the influences on marriage for single cohorts, there is little research that tests explanations for this decline across multiple cohorts. The authors use individual and contextual measures of employment and incarceration to predict transitions to first marriage in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1969-2013). They test two prominent theories of why marriage rates have declined: the decreased availability of marriageable men and the increased economic standing of women. They find that men's reduced economic prospects and increased risk of incarceration contributed to the decline in first marriage rates during the past 45years in the United States, although these basic measures of economic and carceral conditions cannot explain the entire decline.
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