What’s in a name? The significance of surnames to Australian parents

1. What’s in a name? The significance of surnames to Australian parents • Deborah Dempsey, Swinburne University of Technology • Jo Lindsay, Monash University • Lara Hulbert Mainka, Swinburne University of Technology

2. ddempsey@swin.edu.au • This is work-in-progress. Please do not cite without permission. • Full results summary will be available by end of this year on on our project website: • http://whatsinanameaus.wordpress.com/

3. What’s in a name? • Conceiving the sociological significance of surnames: • Beck-Gernsheim (2005) surnames ‘individualised’: have lost their conventional significance. Processes of negotiation, compromise rather than ‘tradition’ at the fore • Finch (2007) ‘Displaying families’: brings to the fore performative considerations about the visibility and status of family relationships • (2008) ‘Naming names’ surnaming raises issues of relatedness to others past and present, and personal identity • Nugent (2010) surnaming practices continue to instantiate ‘patriarchal dividend’ for men: case study of gender relations more broadly

4. What’s in a name? • Existing studies: Surnaming and couple relationships • No Australian studies we know of • Overwhelming majority of US-resident women (between 90 and 95%) assume their husband’s name upon marriage (see Brightman 1994; Johnson & Scheuble 1995; Goldin & Shim 2004; Gooding & Kreider 2009) • Norway, 80% assume husband’s name (Noack & Aarskaug 2008) • Education, political liberalism and age of marriage effects. • Women who keep their surnames tend to be more highly educated than women who don’t (Gooding & Krieder 2009) and older at the age they marry (Noack & Aarskaug 2008). Political liberalism also good predictor of unconventional surname choices by married women in US and Norway.

5. What’s in a name? • Existing studies: Children’s surnames • One US based study located on children’s surnames when married women retained their own name (Johnson & Scheuble 2002) • 90% of the children had father’s surname. • No studies of cohabiting couples’ child surnaming practices • Qualitative research into same-sex couples views/beliefs about family names (Clark, Burns and Burgoyne 2008; Almack 2005) • Parents and would-be parents reflect carefully on the social implications of naming decisions, much less relevant to couples without children

6. What’s in a name? • Research questions • Do Australian family naming trends follow those reported in the international literature? • To what extent are family names explicitly discussed and negotiated between members of same-sex and heterosexual couples? • How do parents’ decisions about children’s names reflect their broader preoccupations with the relational dimensions and socio-legal status of couple and extended family relationships? • Is there evidence of a perceived ‘patriarchal dividend’ for men in the decision-making processes couples undertake regarding family names? • Are there ‘moments’ or situations in the trajectory of family lives in which the relational significance of names takes on heightened importance?

7. What’s in a name? • Methodology • Target group: parents who have conceived their children in a same-sex or heterosexual relationship • Mixed-methods study, three data sources: • Quantitative: • Anonymised customised queries generated from birth registration records held by the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (population data) • Online survey of Australian heterosexual and same-sex relationship parents August 2011- April 2012 (non-representative, volunteer sample)

8. What’s in a name? • Methodology • Qualitative: • -Subset of in-depth telephone interviews with survey participants (ongoing, 29 of 40-50 completed so far) • Recruitment strategies web-based (parenting forums, blogs, Rainbow Family Council email list, staff newsletters at Swinburne and Monash Universities). Also media release and related coverage, postcard mailout to a range of children’s/health services. • Research approved by Swinburne and Monash Human Research Ethics Committees

9. What’s in a name • Results

10. What’s in a name? • Online survey: Participants’ characteristics

11. What’s in a name? • Participants’ characteristics

12. What’s in a name? • Participants’ characteristics

13. What’s in a name? • Participants’ characteristics

14. What’s in a name? • Online survey results: Parents’ surnames

15. What’s in a name? • Online survey results: parents’ surnames

16. What’s in a name? • Online survey results: parents’ surnames

17. What’s in a name? • Online survey results: parents’ surnames

18. What’s in a name? • Summary: Parents’ surnames • Choice of surname is differentiated according to gender: • Men rarely change their surnames – 97% of men in our sample had kept their surname (general population figure likely to be higher) • Women are more likely to change their surname than men and when they do they are likely to take on their partners surname – 96% of married women who changed their names took on their partners surname. • Surnames are strongly differentiated according to relationship type and particularly marriage: • 51% of our total sample of parents have the same surname as a partner • Same surname is normative for married heterosexual couples – 64% in our sample have the same surname (not representative sample!) • Different surnames is normative for other relationship types • Same-sex couples more likely to change name than heterosexual cohabiters (small numbers in our online survey but BDM data on children’s names provides further evidence of this)

19. What’s in a name? 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2010 (inclusive). • Included records are based on the date of birth rather than the date of registration. • Data extracted on 20 March 2012

20. What’s in a name? • Births registered in Victoria, to same-sex-couple parents since the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008, andamendments to the Status of Children Act 1974 and the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996, came into effect on 1 January 2010. • Data extracted on 6 February 2012

21. What’s in a name? • Online survey results: children’s surnames

22. What’s in a name? • Summary: Children’s surnames • 55% of Victorian children are born to couples who share the same surname (our survey data indicates this will usually be the father’s name) • Most children born to differently surnamed mothers and fathers take their father’s name • Indications are that in the vicinity of 90% of Victorian children with a named father have their father’s surname (consistent with US data) • Of children born to lesbian couples, there is not a singular dominant trend, but favouring either partner’s name is less popular than bestowing a surname that reflects the couple.

23. What’s in a name? • Discussion • Why does taking husband’s name continue to be popular for the majority of married women? • Taken for granted that men will keep theirs or not up for discussion • Reasons associated with belonging: to partner, children and family accentuated by women • Many women feel uncomfortable having different name from their children

24. What’s in a name? • Discussion • Why do most children born to married and unmarried heterosexual couples continue to be given their fathers’ surnames, when their mother has made the decision to retain her own? • It continues to be taken for granted • Wanting to validate/legitimise father/child relationship in absence of marriage (women in cohabiting relationships) • Influence of paternal extended family and wanting to acknowledge them • Would mark family out as ‘very different’ or ‘radical’ to do otherwise • Women perceive their partners would resist doing otherwise

25. What’s in a name? • Discussion • Surnaming children is the outcome of considerable discussion and negotiation among unmarried heterosexual couples and lesbian couples in comparison to married couples: • More married couples share a surname • Greater symbolic importance of names for unmarried couples in ‘displaying family’ (cf Finch 2010) • Implications of different surnames come to the fore in specific institutional settings (health care and school)

26. What’s in a name? • Acknowledgements • Thanks to Erin Keleher and Lara Klass from the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Department of Justice, for their assistance with the customised data queries • We would also like to thank the survey and interview participants for sharing their personal/family stories • This research was supported by a Swinburne University Research Development Grant, with additional funding provided by the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University