1 / 19

Marr iage

Marr iage. Family Sociology. Marriage. With all the possibilities and popularity of cohabitation, why do people get married? Requires a long-term public commitment Fulfills social norms, such as expectation of parents, friends, relatives

kelda
Download Presentation

Marr iage

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Marriage Family Sociology

  2. Marriage • With all the possibilities and popularity of cohabitation, why do people get married? • Requires a long-term public commitment • Fulfills social norms, such as expectation of parents, friends, relatives • Married couples get legal rights and privileges reserved for spouses

  3. Marriage • With all the possibilities and popularity of cohabitation, why do people get married? • Allows for emotional investment with reduced risk of abandonment • Increases the probability that children raised by two parents • Marriage is a social institution that confers legality on a relationship

  4. Marriage • With all the possibilities and popularity of cohabitation, why do people get married? • Traditionally marriage has been an integral part of a sequence of the life course and a key event in the life course. • Marriage used to be connected to such things such as: • Leaving parental home • Position in the labor market • A regular sex life • Parenthood • Marriage has fewer effects on these things, so it becomes more acceptable not to marry/ marry/ or divorce

  5. Marriage • Age of marriage has increased considerably • This related to several other changes: 1) Rise in cohabitation. 2) Technological advances in contraceptives 3) Increases in educational attainment, esp. for women 4) Increased female labor force participation

  6. Generation Y is postponing Marriage • A new study by the Pew Research Center is discussed in an article in the Christian Science Monitor • http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0213/Modern-romance-Gen-Y-is-late-to-the-wedding-but-wants-marriage • Note that Andrew Cherlin, whose research we have read, is quoted and how journalism blends anecdotal stories with real research.

  7. Changing Marital Expectations

  8. According to Julian Sanchez in your book: • Stephanie Coontz argues that one women, one man idea of marriage is a new one. • She argues LOVE partnered with marriage was an 18th century invention • See assignment on marriage: what were some of the other types of marriages in ancient times?

  9. Marriage Market • Sociologists often study marriage in terms of the marriage market • Thinking is similar to the employment market • There are 3 components to this “marriage market” • Supply – who is available • Preferences – preferred characteristics • Resources – individual characteristics that are attractive to others

  10. Marriage Market • The concept of the marriage market is that unmarried individuals search for spouses with an acceptable set of desired characteristics • What are some of these desired characteristics? • Propinquity (Proximity) • Religion • Education • Class • Race

  11. Marriage Market • Proximity – where ones lives. • Proximity is important as you actually have to come into contact with someone to meet them and start dating – A study in 1958 showed that people most like to marry lived within 2-3 miles of each other. • Proximity still makes sense because neighborhoods are usually stratified by class, ethnicity, and race. • The importance of proximity is weakening, especially with advances in communication like the internet, but still has some effect (according to more recent studies).

  12. Recent Polls on how/where people met their spouses • The Harris Interactive/eHarmony study was conducted through a nationwide online survey using a representative sample of 7,135 Americans aged 20-54 who were married between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2007. • 4.8% of all new marriages in the United States, resulted from eHarmony • Another new dataset is called: How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST) survey • 18 percent of the surveyed married or committed couples met at work, just 14 percent met in school or college • Source: http://download.eharmony.com/pdf/Harris-09-Executive-Summary.pdf

  13. How Couples Meet Source:Meeting Online: The Rise of the Internet as a Social Intermediary Rosenfeld, 2010. PAA presentation.

  14. Marriage Market • Education:women are becoming more educated so the old pattern of men marrying a wife with less education is no longer the norm. • But similar education is preferred, particularly because more education often means more earning potential, and this is now preferred by both men & women • Educational attainment may also reflect social class.

  15. Education and Marriage • In a reversal of long term marital patterns: • college-educated young adults are MORE likely than young adults without a college degree to have married by age 30

  16. The college-marriage gap has closed • Today college-educated are as likely to marry as the non-college educated

  17. Marriage Market • Class: most people marry within their social class (measured by their occupation or their parents’ occupation). • Many people seek to marry up – this is called hypergamy • Hypergamy is defined as: marrying up in social status. • Women more likely to marry up, men down.

  18. Marriage Market • Race: most marry within their racial group • In the past -- laws against inter-racial marriage (miscegenation) • Still on the books in some southern states until the Supreme Court overturned them in 1967 • Sociologists expect that inter-racial marriage will become more common

  19. Summary • Cohabitation seems to be another family form – but it has not replaced marriage • According to Cherlin – marriage today is a paradox, that as people enter marriage, they are more likely to judge it by a single standard – personal fulfillment - which is difficult when you are an individual in a couple. • People are more likely to marry those who are similar to them in religion, race, class, educational attainment, and attractiveness

More Related