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Title: Gender, Race, and Changing Families: the Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Sweeney, Megan Mcdonnell
Gender, Race, and Changing Families: the Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1998. DAI-A 59/09, p. 3663, Mar 1999
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Economics of Gender; Gender Differences; Marriage; Occupational Attainment; Racial Differences; Women's Roles; Women's Studies

Given dramatic changes in the labor market positions of women and men, gender role attitudes, and consumption patterns that have occurred during the past thirty years, it is expected that the relationship between economic prospects and entry into first marriage will have shifted both for women and for men. In general, we would expect some increase over time in the importance of female economic prospects for marriage and some decline in the importance of male economic prospects resulting from these trends. Yet many important theories of marriage in the social sciences--particularly the work of Gary Becker--assume marriage is based on the economic specialization of spouses and suggest that women's improving economic prospects will make marriage less desirable. This perspective on marriage has influenced a large and diverse group of social scientists who attribute recent declines in marriage to improvements in women's labor market position. This dissertation questions the appropriateness of the assumptions underlying this view for contemporary patterns of marriage. Through an investigation of the changing relationship between economic prospects and entry into first marriage for two recent cohorts of young adults in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience, this research investigates the possibility that the influence of economic factors on marriage has shifted in recent decades. This project further improves upon the conceptualizations of economic prospects used in previous studies of marriage by investigating the impact of future earnings expectations and uncertainty on the marriage process. Because the effects of economic prospects on marriage may change with age, special attention is also focused on how the effects of economic prospects on marriage change both over historical time and over the life course of individuals. Racial and gender differences in the association between economic prospects and marriage are also investigated.
Bibliography Citation
Sweeney, Megan Mcdonnell. Gender, Race, and Changing Families: the Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1998. DAI-A 59/09, p. 3663, Mar 1999.