College as a Great Equalizer? Marriage and Assortative Mating Among First- and Continuing-Generation College Students

College has been hailed as a “great equalizer” that can substantially reduce the influence of parents' socioeconomic status on their children's subsequent life chances. Do the equalizing effects of college extend beyond the well-studied economic outcomes to other dimensions, in particular, marriage? When and whom one marries have important implications for economic and family stability, with marriage acting as a social safety net, encouraging joint long-term investments, and potentially producing dual-earner families. I focus on the marriage timing and assortative mating patterns of first- and continuing-generation college graduates to test whether college acts as an equalizer for marriage against alternative hypotheses. Using discrete-time event-history methods and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I find small differences between first- and continuing-generation graduates in marriage timing, but larger differences in assortative mating, particularly for women. First-generation women have a substantially lower likelihood of marrying another college graduate than do continuing-generation women, and a higher likelihood of marrying a noncollege graduate. These findings highlight the importance of examining noneconomic outcomes when studying social mobility and offer insight into how inequality may persist across generations, especially for women, despite apparent upward mobility.

Preferences, Partners, and Parenthood: Linking Early Fertility Desires, Marriage Timing, and Achieved Fertility

In the United States, underachieving fertility desires is more common among women with higher levels of education and those who delay first marriage beyond their mid-20s. However, the relationship between these patterns, and particularly the degree to which marriage postponement explains lower fertility among the highly educated, is not well understood. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort to analyze differences in parenthood and achieved parity for men and women, focusing on the role of marriage timing in achieving fertility goals over the life course. We expand on previous research by distinguishing between entry into parenthood and average parity among parents as pathways to underachieving, by considering variation in the impact of marriage timing by education and by stage of the life course, and by comparing results for men and women. We find that women with a bachelor’s degree who desired three or more children are less likely to become mothers relative to women with the same desired family size who did not attend college. Conditional on becoming mothers, however, women with at least a bachelor’s degree do not have lower completed family size. No comparable fatherhood difference by desired family size is present. Postponing marriage beyond age 30 is associated with lower proportions of parenthood but not with lower parity among parents. Age patterns are similar for women and men, pointing at social rather than biological factors driving the underachievement of fertility goals.

Men’s Economic Status and Marriage Timing in Rural and Semi-Urban Malawi

In recent decades, qualitative research from across sub-Saharan Africa has shown how young men are often unable to marry because they lack wealth and a stable livelihood. With survey data, researchers have begun to study how men’s economic circumstances are related to when they marry in the continent’s capitals and larger urban centers. However, our understanding of these dynamics outside of large cities remains limited. Drawing on longitudinal survey data, this paper examines how men’s economic standing, both at the individual and household level, relates to their marriage timing in rural and semi-urban communities in the Salima district of Malawi. The findings show that men who have higher earnings, work in agriculture, and come from a household that sold cash crops were more likely to marry. In contrast, students as well as men from households owning a large amount of land were substantially less likely to marry. Additionally, men living in the semi-urban communities were around half as likely to marry as their rural counterparts. This negative association is largely explained by the greater proportion of men who are students in towns and trading centers and also the relatively less agricultural nature of these communities. These findings show the value of considering both individual and family characteristics in studies of marriage timing and also suggest that as sub-Saharan Africa urbanizes, the age of marriage for men will likely rise.

The Gendered Relationship between Parental Religiousness and Children’s Marriage Timing

In this article, we examine whether mother’s and father’s self-reported religiousness relates differently to the timing of their children’s marriages. Conceptualizing religion as one source of cultural schema about marriage that is likely to conflict with other schemas for living, and theorizing that women are more likely to experience structured ambivalence over religious schema and their enactment than men, we predict father’s religiousness will be associated with children’s marriage in accordance with religious dogma, whereas the experience of structured ambivalence yields a more complex relationship between mother’s religiousness and their children’s marriage. Using longitudinal data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal, a primarily Hindu and Buddhist setting, we find contrasting associations between son’s marriage timing and mothers’ and fathers’ religiousness. This provides empirical support for theoretical frameworks that emphasize the gendered nature of religious identity and suggests the influence of religion on other aspects of life is gendered.

Socio-demographic correlates of age at marriage in Nepal: an empirical analysis

Age at marriage of girls is gradually increasing in Nepal, but still there is a lower age at marriage in the Terai. This paper aims to investigate the reasons for early marriage of girls among some families in Nepal with particular focus on the Terai and seeks answer to the research question ‘What are the prominent sociodemographic and cultural factors that influence marriage timing of women in Nepal?’ Findings from empirical data analysis reveal that determination of marriage timing is a complex phenomenon. There are several factors that influence marriage timing of women in Nepal. Although bivariate analysis shows a further elaborative list of factors, multivariate analysis confirms the effect of each variable while controlling the effect of other variables. The prominent factors influencing marriage timing of women are age, place of birth, age at menarche, education of women and their mothers, and caste or ethnicity, and religion. The significant differences in the risk of marrying early among caste and religion groups, and the significantly higher risk among caste/ethnic groups of Terai origin and Muslims who reside mainly in the Terai, are supported by the distinct sociocultural differences with more strict marriage norms and practices prevalent among these groups. The low educational level of these groups in general and women in particular further increases their risk of marrying at an early age. An education level of some secondary and above seems to be a protective factor against early marriage, but many of the caste and ethnic groups (except Terai highcastes) and Muslims of Terai have substantially low education, particularly among women. Lower age at menarche of girls of Terai origin may also be associated with early marriage as age at menarche and age at marriage of girls were positively associated. The lower age at menarche of girls of Terai caste groups in particular seems to be an important factor creating pressure on parents to arrange marriage of their daughters at an early age.