Midterm II sociology

How young people go about finding first sex partner is changing- pre- 1920s

-Courting at parents' home. Sex reserved for marriage -courting: script of behavior followed by young males, first encounter happened in womens home, no legs crossed hands on knees concertation with no touching

interventions in institutions- concerted cultivation

-Criticisms and interventions on behalf of child -Example: PTA involvement, or parents advocate for child in parent-teacher conference -Child learns by example to adopt these roles

How young people go about finding first sex partner is changing- today

-Dating on the wane, hooking up on the rise. -Hooking up is commonly defined as: Intimacy (very broadly defined) without having a relationship (or even expecting one) - But most "hook ups" don't involve intercourse. -Redefinition of what qualifies as "sex" -Hooking up is "limited liability hedonism" - Sexual activity without the limitations of relationships, e.g., exclusivity, time investment, jealousy. - But both men and women overestimate the other gender's comfort with hooking up (60% of students do not think oral sex is sex, only 30% think that you can have oral sex while being a virgin)

How young people go about finding first sex partner is changing- 1920-1980s

-Dating. Sex follows relationship, "one-night stands"are non-normative -Dating shifts control from women to men, from parents to teenagers (Armstrong et al 2010) -dating script

interventions in institutions- Natural growth

-Dependence on institutions, but sense of powerlessness against authority -Conflict between practices at school and at home (structured vs. unstructured)

does mom's work hurt kids

-Despite drastic shifts in female LFP, there is little evidence that fem LFP hurts children (except perhaps infants) 1. Money: dual earner families have greater financial resources- helps kids. • But among low educ couples fem LFP may be mostly compensatory (making up for men's decreasing earnings) rather than a real (net) gain. 2. Time: employed mothers spend (somewhat, not much) less time with their children- hurts kids • Perhaps surprisingly, the increase in female labor force participation over time has not systematically reduced mothers' time with children!

Lareau: Families Differ in Childrearing Practices

-Ethnographic study that followed a total of 12 White and Black families with children in third or fourth grade • Collected data via: - Observations of parents and children in their homes - Interviews with parents - Observations in school classrooms • Different sets of cultural repertoires: - 'Natural Growth'(working class) - 'Concerted Cultivation'(middle class)

exchange theory

-Gender division of labor is self-reinforcing— often: dependence of women on men -average age difference between husband and wife 2-3 years -even if women gets a better education the man is age so he will already have a career -men makes more-wage gap womens time is less valuable

Evidence about Resident Fathers Parenting/involvement:

-Greater father-child interaction linked to lower behavioral problems and delinquency and higher cognitive ability, education, and psych. wellbeing - No discernable differences by child age or race/ethnicity - But many studies not very analytically sophisticated (e.g., one point in time, not longitudinal)

Evidence about Resident Fathers Economic resources:

-Hard to isolate the effects of fathers' money per se, but we do know that two-parent families have much higher average incomes than one-parent families - Economic resources 'account for' about half of gap in child outcomes between dual and single parent families

Unrestricted divorce

-Individualized model of marriage -No-fault divorce 1970 (CA)- people were lying to courts so they could get a divorce -Gradual passage in all states by late 1980s -Sharp increase in divorce rates -Decreasing stigma of divorce - Rise of "serial monogamy" (or, if you prefer, "sequential polygamy")

secondary socialization

-Learning how to function in particular groups within society (e.g. profession)- med school, learn how to dress like a doctor

Gender Division of Household Labor

-Less housework overall - Mechanization: new machines make things easier to do - Outsourcing: care work, childcare, eating out - Lower standards: everything used to have to be ironed • Gender gap in housework has declined steeply- men have started to help a little more • Women still do more housework than men • Continuing gender division in tasks- certain things only men do and something only women do - Benefits men as there's less outdoor/repair to do- men's task are more occasional where as women's tasks are daily

Accommodating Inequality

Hothschild: nancy and evan holt -inequitable division of labor - marital dissatisfaction -"solutions" - family myth and politics of suppressed comparison

mother's time with kids

In sum: Employed mothers don't spend much less time with kids than employed mothers. Increase in female LFP hasn't much reduced mother's time with children • Recently, there's even been an increase in mom's time with kids 1. People overestimate time non-employed women spend w/ kids 2. half of employed married women w/ young kids only work part time (doesn't take much time away from kids) 3. Mechanization & outsourcing housework - Less housework in general over time - Employed women do even less housework 4. Men do more housework (but still gender gap), freeing up mothers' time to spend with kids 5. Fewer children -More time per child -Fewer years w/ young children enables rising LFP 6. Less leisure time for working mothers (preserving time with kids) 7. Rise of preschool enrollment

Teen births

Incidence of teen births - 750,000 teenage women become pregnant each year - 40% of teenage pregnancies end in abortion or miscarriage - 450,000 teen births/year - Incidence is declining - 3-10 times higher in the U.S. than in Western Europe Teenage birth rate is at an all-time low - Teenage birth rate = #births to teens / # teen women But nonmarital teenage birth ratio is up (>80%) - Nonmarital teenage birth ratio = # births to unmarried teens / # births to teens Nonmarital teenage birth ratio has increased mainly because teenagers are less likely to marry - I.e., teen marriage rate has declined faster than teenage birth rate - Remember: teenage birth rate is actually declining

Living Arrangements

Increase in single living among elderly (60+) since mid-century - 1940: <10% live alone - 2008: m20%, w40% live alone Reasons • Cultural: Strong preference for independence • Economic: Because they can (increasing standard of living) • Demographic: Gender difference in life expectancy

Attitudes Toward Marriage- change 1970s-1990s

Increasing acceptance of premarital sex, acceptability of childlessness, cohabitation, non-marital childbearing; less rigid gender role expectations

Mid-1960s+

Increasing emphasis on child protection - Reporting requirements for professionals

religion and marriage

people who are actively religious marry earlier and have somewhat happier marriages

macro

changes in societal level factors- cultural changes, womens employment, mens employment

care work

definition: face-to-face activity in which one person cares for dependent other- mostly done by women and care work is a public good -care work increasingly outsourced -problem: care work wage penalty- Female child care workers earn about 25% less than comparable women with non-care employment -Care work still devalued as "women's work." - Care work creates public goods à free rider problem - Job satisfaction vs. wages - Low unionization

consequences of different styles- NG

emerging sense of constraint when confronting social institutions: alienation

permissive parenting

emotional support, little control

time-diary studies

surveys in which people are asked to keep a record of what they were doing every second during a time period -in 1965 women spent six times as much time doing housework and child care as men -2012 women spent twice as much time than men -40/60 split of child care and house work

Deinstitutionalization of marriage

the idea that alternative to marriage are more acceptable and more prevalent than in the past

selection effect

the principle that whenever individuals sort or "select" themselves into groups nonrandomly, some of the differences among the groups reflect preexisting differences among the individuals

spill over

the transfer of mood or behavior between work and home

Widowhood Effect (Blacks)

• No apparent widowhood effect for Blacks • Probably because elderly AfAm are much more likely than whites to live with other kin (rather than alone) • Greater independence of AfAm husbands and wives • Blacks appear to benefit from marriage longer than whites look at graphs in notes

Prevalence • Most victims of domestic violence are women

- But men also experience abuse (stigma problem) • 22% women vs 8% men report ever physically assaulted • 43% women vs 20% men who are physically assaulted by intimate partner are injured - Deaths • 76% of intimate partner homicide victims are women • About as many husbands as wives killed by spouse • (Difference: legal definition of "homicide") - Rape • 8% of women report ever raped or attempted rape by intimate partner • Estimated 20% of college women experience rape or attempted rape while in college (about 10% call it "rape.")

Evidence about Non-Resident Fathers parenting/involvement

- Evidence more limited and less consistent than for resident fathers - No effects of frequency of contact or visitation, regardless of race, child gender - Positive/authoritative parenting and closeness do seem to promote child and adolescent wellbeing

Keep in mind that institutional, companionate, and individualized marriage are idealized/simplified stages/tendencies

- In reality, distinctions often weren't as clean. - Remember that marriage wasn't available for large groups: • Slaves until 1865. - Thus, the strong role expectations during the era of institutional marriage simply served as yet another tool of oppression: slaves were not allowed to abide by the white ideal. • Same-sex couples, until 2004 (MA) / 2015 (U.S.)

Organization of Daily Life- natural growth

- Kids "hang out" with peers or kin - Energetic, boisterous play is fine

Organization of Daily Life- concerted cultivation

- Kids involved in many leisure activities that are orchestrated and overseen by adults - Self-restraint is rewarded -middle class parents hand off activities to others

Anti Gay Marriage Arguments

- Marriage is not a creation of the law, but of God, and is divinely limited to heterosexual unions - Marriage is only for heterosexual procreation - Children of gays and lesbians will be stigmatized - Gay marriage endangers heterosexual marriage - a bedrock of human society -Slippery slope #1: It will lead to polygamy. - Slippery Slope #2: Allowing homosexuals to marry, could lead any people with close ties to apply for the right to marriage benefits. - Slippery Slope #3: Gay marriage will increase the divorce rate, since gay relationships are inherently unstable.

Divorce tolerance

- Mid 19th - 1960s - Fault principle - Adultery, desertion (later others) - Gender neutral in principle, but gendered in practice - Rise of companionate marriage (early 20th century people actually liked each other) - Expanding fault criteria - Lack of love, abuse (not always a valid reason for divorce "marriage was a prison")

Sex and Marriage 1960-present

- Romantic love & sexual attraction centrally important for marriage 2nd sexual revolution decouples sex from marriage & childbearing - Increased acceptability of sex outside marriage (also for women) - Increased belief in sexual privacy, freedom from state interference » First for heterosexual, later also for homosexual sex - Availability of effective contraception (pill: 1972) - Early adulthood - Rise of cohabitation - Today, among new spouses, most have had sex before marriage -since the 1960s there has been an increase in sex before marriage -marital counseling

Pro Gay Marriage Arguments

- The equality argument: too many important rights are tied to marriage—to deny access to those rights on the basis of sexual preference is discrimination. - The symbolic argument: Gay marriage "most fully tests the dedication of people who are not gay to full equality for gay people" (Stoddard 1989) - Civil unions are a "separate but equal" and second-class solution. - Aside from the many rights accorded to married people, marriage is a privileged status in American society of great symbolic importance and should be open to all.

Evidence about Non-Resident Fathers Economic resources (child support):

- Unmarried fathers pay less support than divorced fathers; but informal support more common among unmarried fathers at least early on - Child support payments associated with better child outcomes, especially academic achievement and less externalizing behavior problems • Points to importance of economic resources -parents should be on same page with parenting

Different Views of the Relationship between Childhood and Adulthood- middle class parents

- Work is challenging, rewarding and intellectually stimulating - Childhood seen as a "training ground" for self-actualization as one becomes an adult - Emphasis on training for creative careers

Hookup Culture (Wade 2016)

-"Hookup culture" is a normative script that channels/determines how young people engage in physical intimacy. - Like any other script, the script of hookup culture limits choice (we say that the script is "dominant"). - Many seek pleasure, meaning, and empowerment, but don't find them in hookups. -"Intentional carelessness" - Two roles of alcohol: (i) disinhibiting; (ii) essential part of the script: provides cover/excuse, emotionally trivializes encounters.

Why has female labor force participation increased so much?- push factors

-(i.e., compelled by circumstances) -Decline/stagnation of wages for lower educ/middle class men- women had to work to make up for this -High divorce rate

Why has female labor force participation increased so much?-pull factors

-(i.e., desire, opportunity) -Expansion of the service sector-provide jobs that were expected to be filled by women -Increased education-better jobs -Liberalized attitudes toward female LFP -Fewer children (lower total fertility rate)- having fewer kids makes it easier to work

Teen sexual behavior

-60% have ever had intercourse by high school graduation; 50% are "sexually active" (w/in 3 months) - Girls > boys - African Americans > whites and Hispanics -Increase in teenage sexual intercourse until ~1990 -Noticeable decline since ~1990 -Still double standards in sexual norms - Although sexual activity among unmarried girls/women is far more accepted today than it was in past decades, sexual activity remains a greater threat to women's than to men's reputation. -sexual activity among tennagers is much more common than it was prior to the 1970s

Social Security

-A Federal social insurance program designed to insure against the risk of economic insecurity associated with a breadwinner's old age, death, or disability • Nearly universal (workers & their spouses) • By far the largest income transfer program in the U.S -almost universal (something that is earned) if they have worked a certain amount of years

language use- Concerted cultivation

-Child encouraged to pursue reasoning behind parent's directives - Much bargaining between parent and child over "constrained choice"

consequences of different styles CC

-Child's emerging sense of empowerment and entitlement - Learns how to see opportunities within institutional structures to get what he or she wants or to make change -Differences in childrearing practices lead to the transmission of social class across generations

How Do Couples Decide to Cohabit?

-Cohabitation often does not result from a conscious decision - For most couples, cohabiting is a gradual process rather than an abrupt change in their relationship - Many cannot remember start date (like married couples would remember wedding date.) - No formal ceremony, no 'official' marker - "Slide" or "drift" into cohabitation (Manning & Smock)

Individualization (1960+)

-Meaning and cultural and economic sources -marriage becomes vehicle of self success -Overriding importance of personal fulfillment -Self-development -Openness and communication -Flexible roles (decline of homemaker-breadwinner, rise of dual earner model) -Enabled by rising standards of living - possibility of leaving dissatisfying relationships (mid 20th century people become to discover higher order of needs) -the rise of dating in the 20th century shifted much of the control over meeting partners from adults to their children and their children peer group

"fundamental problem"

-Problem: Causal effects are defined as the difference between the potential outcome that we would observed under "treatment" (divorce) and the potential outcome that we would observed under "control" (no divorce) -But we can't observe both potential outcomes at the same time because parents either divorce or they don't! -This is the "fundamental problem of causal inference" (Holland 1986)

Restricted divorce

-Reformation - mid 19th -Reformed churches remove marriage from list of sacraments - Moves divorce into secular realm -Legal but rare and difficult - Canon law, ecclesiastic courts continue to provide framework - England: act of Parliament (divorce was taken away, needed act of parliament, commoner could not divorce, remained impossible) - America: civil law since Revolution -"Fault principle" adultery, desertion (adversarial) -Folk practices, informal divorce

companionate marriage (until-1960s)

-Retain sharp gender division of labor, homemaker breadwinner ideal -But new emphasis on affection, friendship, sexual gratification—spouses as partners & companions -Also still: external criteria of own role behavior to evaluate martial success

sex and marriage: 1890-1960

-Sexual attraction & romantic love increasingly important for choice of spouse -Sex still confined to marriage (esp. middle class), but pleasure more valued

power

-ability to force a person to do something against their will -Needn't involve constant open threat. May look like voluntary compliance if person anticipates enforcement

Simple Pre-Post Comparison

-compare kids' test scores before and after divorce -Problems of Pre-Post Tests • Recall: divorce is a process, not a time point. Maybe, marital conflict in the run up to the divorce harmed kids such that the simple pre-post test masks the harm done by the process of divorce

primary socialization

-first 4 or 5 years -Learning language, rituals, routines, behaviors, norms that enable membership in a culture

authoritative parenting

-high emotional support, consistent reasoned moderate control -often preferred

authoritarian parenting

-low support, coercive (unreasoned) control

cohabitation today

-majority of young Americans will cohabit -Cohabitation increasingly normative ~2/3 of first marriages are preceded by cohabitation -Early adulthood - the age of independence -Keeps rising

Cohabitation- 1960s

-nonmarital coresidence limited to low SES -rural "common law marriage" (now a dying legal doctrine) - jump over broom stick and you are considered married

language use- natural growth

-parents use directives- "Don't do that!" -child: "why not?" -parent: "because I said so"

cohabitation- 1970s

-rapid increase in cohabitation 1970s -15 fold increase in cohabitation 1960-2010 -also increased among high education (high visibility) -but still more common among low SES

sex and marriage- pre 1980:

-sexual attraction & romantic love are considered an inappropriate basis for choice of spouse (especially for women). -Sex only in marriage & in moderation. (women did not enjoy sex) -Female pleasure discounted -wives were suxaualy aviable -wedding night was the first time they had sex and they were expected to have sex -did not care if you were in love- about duties not desires

authority

-the acknowledged right of someone to supervise and control other's behavior -Recognized legitimacy; importance of social construction of authority

sum up what we know about teenage mothers

-they are disadvantaged in education, income, and employment -some, although probably not all, of their disadvantages are due to other factors in life, such as growing up in low-income families -there is much variation in the way their lives turn out

rise of grandparenting contributes

-to the stability of the status order, diminish social ability of the status order diminish social ability

Obergefell v. Hodges 2015 Four main arguments:

1."The right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy." (based rights to choose your spouse (private family) 2."The right to marry is fundamental because it supports a two-person union unlike any other in its importance to the committed individuals."- (marriage is really special (public family) 3.The right to marry "safeguards children and families and thus draws meaning from related rights of childrearing, procreation, and education."- accepting our own difference between private and public families 4."Marriage is a keystone of our social order", and "[t]here is no difference between same- and opposite-sex couples with respect to this principle" -Against states' rights defense that same-sex marriage bans are the result of democratic process, SCOTUS argues the protection of fundamental rights cannot rely on democratic process alone.

Remarriage & Repartnering

9 out of 10 remarriages follow divorce, not death After divorce: • Remarriage rates are high but decreased over past 50 years. • Repartnering rates are increasing - "Repartnering" includes marriage and cohabitation

Mother's employment

Although mother's employment hurts kids via reduced time with parent, added income benefits kids. The most recent estimates suggest that the net effect is zero, i.e. income fully compensates for time away from kids (Nicoletti et al. 2020)

Late 19th C:

Child protection movement - Affective childhood (children born innocent) - Victorian control of immigrant & working classes

Micro explanations II

Cohabitation • Strong predictor of divorce. - Likely pure selection, not causation » Cohabitation attracts those who are less committed, more independent, less religiously involved, more likely to have divorced parents. -Cohabitors more likely to divorce regardless of cohabitation » No effect for cohabitors who do marry their partner • But may actually decrease divorce (Elwert 2007) - Trial marriage: Cohabitation prevents divorces by preventing formation of potentially doomed marriages -1/2 of cohabitation end in break up

cohabitation implications

Cohabitation compensates for much of rising age at marriage -Pop. married by 25 fell 24% between 1970 and 1985 -Pop. in coresidential union by 25 fell only 8% -Rising cohabitation compensates for 2/3 of rising age at marriage Much "single" motherhood actually "non-married but cohabiting" motherhood ~30% of all births outside marriage ~15% of all births to unmarried but cohabiting women ~50%of "single" births accrue to cohabiting women Cohabitation usually short-lived ~ half dissolve w/in 1 year ~ half end in marriage w/in 1 year Few last more than 5 years

Kinship in Stepfamilies

Creation of complex new families • But extreme complexity remains rare • <5% of all remarried couples have three sets of children (yours, mine, ours) • ~3% of all Americans have been married three or more times. • What is kinship? • Note: Group boundaries (definitions of "family") often differ across people in a repartnering chain. => Increasing importance of social construction (creation and maintenance) of kinship kinship is socially constructed

Divorce as a process

Distinguish between marital conflict, separation, and legal divorce (Amato 2000) 1. Conflict/unhappiness - often prolonged period 2. Separation - physically moving apart- whites are faster to separate than afam) 3. Divorce • Legal separation of assets • Legal and physical arrangements for child custody - In practice, custody still mostly goes to mothers • Coordination of parental efforts - Noncustodial parent (hopefully) pays child support - Co-parenting (coordinate/cooperate) vs. parallel parenting (operate separately)

group differences in divorce rates

Divorce rates are... •Rising among less educated •Falling among college grads •Higher among Blacks, Hispanics •Lower among Whites, Asian Americans •No meaningful difference Catholic/Protestant

Is it Causation or Selection?

Effects of divorce on children are hotly debated. • We have much evidence that part of the of long-term negative association between divorce and child educational outcomes is due to selection, not causation -Separating causation from selection is difficult

Long Term Consequences for Kids

Evidence for some but not widespread long-term harm - Distress vs. disorder - Most children resume normal emotional/behavioral development - Adult mental health of adult children of divorce. somewhat worse - Glass half-empty / half-full • 29% vs 13% of kids experiencing vs. not experiencing divorce do drop out of HS • 7/10 vs 9/10 of kids experiencing vs. not experiencing divorce do not drop out of HS

Attitudes Toward Marriage- stability 1980s-2000

General disposition towards marrying and marriage favorable & stable (no change in attitude toward marriage, singlehood, divorce)

fathers

Fathers tend to relate somewhat differently to children ('active play') than mothers - though there's much variation today • Historically, fathers tended to be 'breadwinners' • Today, more involved in direct care, nurturing, engaging in activities, sharing responsibility for arranging care, etc. Fathers' influence is often indirect • Income, supporting the mother emotionally, providing united 'front' to the child re discipline, etc. Fathers matter, but may matter less than mothers • Less time spent with child • Doesn't mean that fathers couldn't matter more if they interacted more with their children. Big differences between resident and non-resident fathers

The Institutions with which Kids Families Interact Vary by Social Class

For example: • Certain "Mainline" Protestant denominations (Episcopalian, Presbyterian) attended more by the upper-middle class • Children of the elite attend private prep schools • "Blue-collar" vs. "white collar" jobs form parents' sense of what's important in life • Leisure time spent watching NASCAR versus going to the museum

Family life intersects with other institutions

For example: • Families attend religious services • Children are sent off to school • Parents work in organizations • Families share leisure together by attending organized events

Elder Care

Majority of disabled elderly cared for at own home by relatives (not nursing home) • Wives care for elderly husbands • Daughters for elderly parents, esp. mothers - Potentially decreasing due to » Increasing female LFP » Declining fertility à fewer daughters • Precarious position of divorced fathers - But note greater lifetime earnings of men

Declining Organizing Role

Marital status strictly used to organize: • Sex • Coresidence • Childbearing • Childrearing • Gender division of labor -All increasingly possible outside of marriage- Marriage no longer the exclusive organizing principle

Specialization & Independence Models of Partnership

Marriage market theory -Supply, preferences, resources - Specialization model -Trading comparative advantages -Efficient (Becker) - but risky (Oppenheimer) -Older model (50s) - Independence model (what we have now) • Income pooling and bargaining • Increasingly dominant model (today) young adults are delaying marriage until they have accomplished other goals such as obtaining steady employment or buying a home

the "second shift"

Men work a single shift in the labor market; working women work a second shift at home after hours (housework) -Describes gender division of household labor until 1990s

Geronimous & Korenman (1992)- "sibling fixed effects study"

Method: compare sisters w/ & w/o teenage birth (TB) -Sisters have same family socioeconomic background; they are comparable in this respect (no difference ("selection") on parental background) 1. Compare teen mothers to women w/o TB -Finding 1: Women with TB on average earn significantly less later in life than women w/o TB 2. Compare teen mothers to their sisters w/o TB -Finding 2: The difference is considerably reduced when comparing women with TB to their own sisters w/o TB (and the difference is sometimes no longer statistically significant) Interpretation: a large part of the observed difference between teenage mothers and non-TB women is due to selection rather than causation. Teen moms come from families that on average produce less favorable outcomes regardless of TB.

Rise of Grandparenting reasons

Mortality decline -Increased life expectancy (+ "good years") - Gender and race differences -People live long enough to meet grandkids Fertility decline -Fewer births (and hence fewer siblings) -Emphasizes vertical kinship -Youngest child leaves home earlier, -More time to spend with grandchildren

Attitudes Toward Marriage- change 1950s-1970s

Positive attitudes toward marriage decline; increasing approval of singlehood; disapproval of marital restrictions

Divorce vs. conflict

Pre (and post) divorce marital conflict may harm children • Divorce as a process • Kids as parent's pawns- parents try and get kids on their side • Studies find that some post-divorce problems start pre divorce Consequences of divorce depend on circumstances • Psychological wellbeing of children whose parents ended a severely conflictive marriage (physical abuse, frequent yelling in front of children, etc.) appears to improve (e.g., Amato & Booth 1997) • But only ~1/3 of divorces end severely conflictive marriage.

mirco

changes in individual levels- age of marriage, parents divorce, lack of homogamy, cohabitation

Standard of Living for Elderly

Standard of living for the elderly has increased -Social security benefits -Medicare for almost all elderly - But doesn't pay for nursing home care -Medicaid for poor (of any age) -Some elderly continue to work Poverty among elderly -Less than most people think (9.7% in 2018); It's this low chiefly due to Social Security payments. -less than 10% of elderly are poor

kinship based definition of stepfamilies

Stepfamilies are groups of people linked by remarriage or repartnering chains and who recognize each other as family. -pretty broad -the new extended family

household based definition of stepfamilies

Stepfamily is a household in which (a) two adults are married or cohabiting, and (b) at least one adult has a child present from a previous marriage or relationship -pretty narrow definition- the child has to live with them

two solutions to the fundamental problem

Two strategies to control for preexisting differences between divorce/no-divorce kids (i.e. selection): 1. Compare treatment and control kids that resemble each other in every observed respect • "Comparing apples to apples": i.e., compare divorce kids with high inc & high educ parents to non-divorce kids with high inc & high educ parents, etc. • This controls for observed selection. 2. Compare kids to themselves before and after divorce • Known as "using cases as their own controls," or "fixed effects": i.e. inspect kid's test score trajectory over time. • Controls for selection due to unobserved factors specific to the child and his/her family.

Mid-1970s+

Women's movement - Shelters & other support services - State and federal legislation (protecting women, children, elderly)

Does Teenage Childbearing Cause Disadvantage? Fact: teenage mothers have less education, lower income, greater risk of unemployment later in life

causation: TB creates negative outcomes - Ask: Do teen mothers have negative outcomes because they have had a TB? selection: women sort into TB non-randomly such that differences between women with TB and women w/o TB reflects preexisting differences between these women rather than causation. - Ask: How do women who'll have a TB differ from women who won't have a TB from the get-go?- preexisting differences, parental poverty

Consequences for men (divorce)

• Average divorced man suffers economic hardship, too though less than average divorced woman (McManus & DiPrete 2001) - Average male standard of living declines 15-20% » Loss of wife's income, economies of scale, child support payments - But men who contribute >80% of pre-divorce income gain in standard of living • Tight coupling of marriage and fatherhood for men - Meaning, men who cease to be husbands often cease to behave like fathers - Sharp decline in contact with children and change in nature of time spent together ('fun' activities outside the house rather than daily interaction) • But: increase in single father families - 15% of single parent families in 2010, often coresident with other relatives- because mom died not divorce

Stepmother and Stepfather Differences

• Being a stepmother can be harder than being a stepfather. - After divorce, children typically live with mother (and stepfather), so biological mother remains a central figure - Typical stepmother (married to non-custodial father) must establish relationship during visits of children • Stepfathers compete with non-custodial fathers, who may not see children very often - Often fill a vacuum left by departed biological father - May be held to a lower standard than stepmothers - Easier for children to accept two father figures than two mother figures

Role of Parents

• Childrearing is one central task of the public family (parents provide: Material support, emotional support, control) • Parental circumstances and parenting powerfully shape life the life chances of the next generation • Intergenerational transmission of class position (education of parents predicts the education of children) • Challenges popular rhetoric of autonomy, personal responsibility, and equal opportunity -social structure is very stable over generations

Effects on Children

• Children in stepfamilies less well off than children in families with two biological parents. • Well-being of children in stepfamilies comparable to that of children of divorce - But severe problems are rare • Same problem of selection vs. causation as in research on divorce effects - Known effect: daughters in stepfamilies leave home earlier. • Possibly challenge of mother-daughter bond through remarriage.

Institutional marriage (19th C)

• Clear rules and roles • Enforced by church, law, community (external) • Male authority; wife domestic, dutiful, and submissive -a marriage in which the emphasis is on male authority, duty and conformity to social norms

Risk Factors

• Clear social gradients • Domestic violence more frequent among: - Poor, low income, low education, unemployed individuals - Cohabitation/divorced/remarried > marriage - Young males (<30) - Drug & alcohol users - Race/Ethnicity (Female lifetime victimization 30% Black, 25% white, 15% Asian) • Obvious problem of selection vs. causation - Risk factors are predictors, not necessarily causes - E.g., evidence suggests that greater prevalence of violence in cohabitation vs. marriage is due to selection of violent individuals into cohabitation and out of marriage

types of cohabitation

• Cohabitors are a diverse group (Many purposes) • Three dominant interpretations • Pure relationship (Giddens) - Relationship for its own sake • Precursor to marriage - Testing ground for marriage • Alternative to marriage - Pretty unusual among heterosexuals in the U.S. - Used to be the only available option for gays and lesbians in much of the U.S. until 2015. - Rare—few cohabiting unions last >5 years

Cohabitation as an "Incomplete Institution"

• Compared to marriage, cohabitation is an "incomplete institution" (Cherlin) • A social institution consists of an established, widely shared set of rules and expectations that regulate individual behavior - The rules need not be absolute, of course. • Marriage is a social institution because it regulates individual behavior in this manner. • Cohabitation largely lacks established rites, scripts, expectations, routines—perhaps because it's still too new. - We call it an "incomplete" institution because these rules and expectations are beginning to emerge

consequences of women (divorce)

• Crisis period ~ 2-3 years of intense emotional upheaval, ambiguous attachment for both spouses • Consequences for women - Sharp decrease in average economic well-being ~30% decline in standard of living (composition adjusted) - Coping strategies: residential moves, living with parents, reenter labor force - Stress and depression as adjust to being worker and primary parent. • Alimony (increasingly rare) • Child support - 60% of divorced mothers supposed to receive support - 46% of custodial mothers get anything

marco explanations II

• Cultural changes (1960 refine nature of marriage, higher expectations of marriage makes it less stable, easily disappointed) • Individualized marriage regime • Ubiquity of divorce normalizes divorce - Decreasing stigma - Less frightening • Hard to say what's cause, what's effect ("simultaneity")

defining "causal effect"

• Definition: A causal effect is the difference between the potential outcome under "treatment" (i.e. divorce) and the potential outcome under "control" (i.e. no divorce)

Different Views of the Relationship between Childhood and Adulthood- working-class parents

• Differences partly the product of occupational differences between working class and middle-class parents • Working-class parents: often not expressive or liberating - Adult work is not liberating or self-expressive, but often deadening - One is most fully him/herself away from work, with family - Childhood is a time to be free of life's burdens - not to prepare for them!

trend of divorce

• Divorce rate: #divorces/1000 married per year - 1860: 2/1000 - mid 60s-1980 (Divorce revolution) - 1980: 23/1000 (peak) - 2002: 18/1000 Note: since late 70s, Marriages are more likely to end in divorce than death.

History

• Early Colonies (Puritans) • Private family weak, strong community enforcement • Punish spousal abuse • But encourage severe physical discipline for children (children considered tainted by sin) • 19th C: Emphasis on protecting private sphere from public intervention

Income, Gender Division of Labor, and Power

• Earning more money than partner confers power at home • Income from market work: fungible-able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable. • Care work at home: not fungible (even liability) - Children are "relationship-specific investments"

Short Term Consequences for Kids

• Effects differ by time horizon. • Near universal emotional turmoil during "crisis period," 2-3 years (e.g. depression, lowered self-esteem, irritability, behavioral problems) • Factors: • Loss of a parent (by divorce)-dependant on parents • Economic loss- mothers suffer sharp decline, fewer resources, she has to work more • Diminished parenting - Coercive cycles • Multiple transitions (new home, school, friends, parent) - Transitions per se may create problems behavioral problems are more seen from divorce not parental death

Marriage as capstone experience

• From marker of conformity to marker of prestige • Increasingly elaborate, expensive, weddings • Marriage no longer begins, but rather crowns adulthood marriage no longer has steps you need to follow, example people have sex before marriage

Rise of Grandparenting

• Grandparenting emerged as mass phenomenon only since ~WWII • In 1900, <25% of newborns had four living grandparents, only 20% of all 30-year olds had any living grandparents • In 2000, >66%, >75% • For the first time in history, most grandchildren and grandparents even have the chance to know each other! -older people stay healthier and longer -fewer birth-less grandchild, can spend more time with each grandkid

Formal Legal Definition of the Family

• How does one become part of someone's family? • Birth • Marriage • Adoption • This is the formal legal definition of the family used in most family courts.

Is Marriage Necessary For Rights?

• If nothing else, marriage is the fastest way to acquire these rights all at once. • Same rights were more difficult to acquire for gay and lesbian couples before Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) • Few states recognized gay marriage • Until 2013, Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) 1996. Section 3 defined marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman" at the federal level. Section 2, permitted states to not recognize gay marriages formed in other states. - Section 3 was struck down by SCOTUS 9/2013: Federal marriage benefits available to same-sex couples. • Some of these rights could be acquired by other means—but more slowly. - Marriage vs. civil unions/domestic partnership vs. piecemeal conferral of rights

Obergefell v. Hodges 2015

• In 2014, Appeals Court of the 6th circuit upholds state constitutional ban of same-sex marriage, contradicting prior rulings of 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th circuits. => Triggers SCOTUS review. • In 2015, SCOTUS overturns all state bans on same-sex marriage. • Decision framed as extending the fundamental right to marry to all couples. - I.e., NOT establishing a new (and hence separate) right to same-sex marriage.

Grandparenting

• Increase in affectionate bonds • High frequency of contact • Increase in direct parenting through grandparents • Multigenerational households ~4% of children - Often divorced or single mothers w/children - Same HS grad rate as 2-parent households • Skipped generation households ~2% of children - More prevalent for African American children (9%) - Stress on grandparents can see them more because better Transportation

Adjustment of Children

• Increased behavior problems may occur at the beginning • Key factor is the age of the child when stepparent joins family: - Early years easier to establish a more parent like relationship - Older children are more likely to resist a parent-like relationship - The most difficult time to start a stepfamily is when children are in early adolescence

Public Opinion vs. Law part 2

• Increasing public acceptance and early state-level legalization (starting 2003, MA), however, were countered with legal backlash. - At first, only statutory bans on same-sex marriage; then state-constitutional bans in most states by 2008. • Stark reversal: In 2013, SCOTUS granted federal recognition of same-sex marriages formed in states where same-sex marriage was legal even in states where it was not. • In 2015, Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage in all states.

Annette lareau

• Interested in: - How social stratification affects life chances, starting during childhood and adolescence - How class structure gets reproduced • Finds big differences in parenting styles by social class (but not by race)

Legal Obligations Entailed in Marriage

• Legal responsibilities of family members, especially to dependents • Care and Nurture • Financial Support • Decision-making in health care, education, upbringing • Housing, clothing, and feeding

Widowhood Effect (Whites)

• Loss of spouse increases mortality by about 15-20% in old age for whites • Central evidence for health benefits of marriage • Found for bereaved men and women • Loss of primary care giver (men) • Loss of income (women) • Long lasting (no apparent substitute for being married)

Benefits of Coresidence

• Many benefits of coresidence accrue to both marrieds and cohabitants: • Companionship • Sex • Economies of scale • Risk reduction, insurance function

Rights & Benefits Conferred by Marriage

• Marital status is mentioned in >1000 federal laws (GAO, 1997) • Several hundred benefits (exact number in dispute) accrue to married individuals, including: • Spousal Medicare and Social Security Benefits (most important federal program to keep elders out of poverty) • Access to employer health insurance (many people have health insurance through work, children, and married spouses) • Visitation, decision-making, and custody for the infirm (if someone gets really sick, their next kid gets to make decisions) • Visitation, decision-making, and custody for children (underage Americans lack a number of rights, parents tell them what to do, second parents adoption are difficult) • Medical leave to care for sick spouse (important, if spouses get super sick you can ask for a lave for work to care for them) • Anti-discrimination statutes (illegal to discriminate because someone is married) • Housing • Immigration privileges • Tax benefits • Inheritance (esp. inheritance in the absence of a will)

Benefits of Marriage: Marriage as an institution

• Marriage is a socially enforced public commitment - Enforceable trust • Expectation of permanence ( makes specialization less risky) - Facilitates specialization, and thus increases gains - Resource pooling (pay less taxes when married) • Legal privileges, derived benefits - E.g. tax breaks, alimony, pensions, social security, Medicare

benefits of marriage

• Marriage provides stronger insurance function than cohabitation (B/c greater stability & enforceable trust) people change behavior once they are married • Marital role behaviors (Men reduce risky behaviors)

Are the Benefits of Marriage Causal?

• Married men and women, on average, are better off than unmarried people with respect to: -E.g. health, mortality, happiness, income & wealth, violence • Partially due to the selection of advantaged individuals into marriage, and of "bad risks" out of marriage: -Lower rates of spousal violence in marriage compared to cohabitation may be entirely due to selection -Married-men's wage premium - "Jerk effect" • Partially due to causation • Marriage really does seem to improve people's lives

Measuring Cohabitation

• Measuring cohabitation is really difficult. • How/when it is measured matters: - Direct question versus 'inferred' measures yield different estimates - Current versus retrospective reports yield different estimates - Question wording, e.g. yes/no versus more categories • Within-couple differences - One study of couples with children found that 11% of mothers and fathers disagree about cohabitation status • Terminology - About 18 percent of cohabitors don't identify with the term "unmarried partner"

big question: equal hours=equality?

• Men and women may work the same total number of hours, but they don't perform the same tasks. • Ask: who gets to decide who gets to perform which task? -what people find equal men work more in labor market women more in house

'Functional' Definition of the Family

• Minow (1991) advocated that courts move to a 'functional' legal definition of the family: - Meaning that non-nuclear family relationships that share the essential characteristics of 'traditional' families be recognized as 'de facto' families. • Share affect and resources • Consider each other family members • Present themselves as family members to community - How might this work in practice?

mutual assistance

• More assistance down than up! - Down (older to younger generation) • Mostly direct assistance - Financial assistance to children & grandchildren - Childcare - Up (younger to older generation) • Mostly indirect assistance: - Social security taxes • Direct assistance: - Care for frail/disabled parent older- younger direct (parents pay for children) younger- is indirect SS taxes to older gen

Macro Explanations I

• No-fault divorce (NFD) legislation • Theoretical prediction: Upon passage of NFD law, divorce rate should spike to satisfy pent-up demand; divorce rate should remain pretty high while new norms diffuse; finally, divorce rate should reach new steady state at a higher level than pre-NFD. • Empirical evidence is inconsistent with this theory! • Research finds a temporary rise due to NFD, but no long-term effect after 10 years, and possibly a decline in divorce rates thereafter (Wolfers 2006). -Making divorce easier (i.e., NFD) doesn't explain the longterm rise of the divorce rate

Middle-Class Parenting = 'Concerted Cultivation'

• Parents see their children as 'a project' • They seek to actively develop their talents, opinions, and skills through organized activities • Reasoning and language development are important • Close supervision of their experiences in school

Working-Class Parenting = 'Natural Growth'

• Parents work hard to feed, clothe and protect their children • But they also presume that children will spontaneously grow and thrive • Children spend much of their nonschool time in unstructured play • Are given independence in school and other institutions

Why marry?

• Public Commitment • Social Recognition- people treat you different once you are married • Social and instrumental support, and connection to larger community- more assistance once you are married • Means of individual fulfillment • Co-Parenting easier (and better?) than single parenting ("package deal")

Conflict vs Violence

• Relationship conflict is inevitable • People cannot always agree • Not all conflict is necessary or constructive • How conflict is conducted and resolved is key - Based on reason and compromise vs. power, manipulation, abuse, violence • Domestic violence is not inevitable • Conflict need not result in violence • Morover, much violence is not a result of conflict • Types of abuse- Intimate partner violence, child abuse, (Verbal, psychological, physical, neglect)

Remarriage Instability

• Remarriages more likely to end in (early) divorce than first marriages - Why? • In part due to causation: Remarried life is more complicated than first marriage - Greater complexity of relationships in remarriages (with children) - Remarriage as an "incomplete institution" (Cherlin) • In part, it's selection: Remarried partners are different from the get-go - May be inherently more willing to divorce (already did it once!) - May be less skilled at finding a partner or holding a marriage together (personality traits, mental health, financial difficulties, etc.)

What Factors Influence Divorce Rates?

• Researchers have no comprehensive explanation for rise and fall of divorce rates—no single factor coherently explains group differences [Jencks & Ellwood] • Lots of a priori plausible stories—not all are supported by data • Explanations often apply only to limited periods • Big problems of causation vs. selection (more on this later) • No theory explains everything • Macro vs. micro explanations (imperfect distinction) • Macro: changes in societal level factors • Micro: changes in individual level factors

Social Security and Poverty

• S.S. significantly reduces elderly poverty • Alternative poverty calculations (2002) show anti-poverty effectiveness of the program: • Percent poor before transfers = 49.9% • Percent poor after social security=11.5% • Percent poor after means-tested cash transfers (Official poverty rate)=10.4% • After all taxes & near-cash transfers = 9.0%

Who Remarries?

• Sex: Men are more likely than women to remarry • Age: Younger people are more likely than older people to remarry • Kids: Women with three or more children are less likely to remarry • Race: Whites more likely to remarry within 5 years than Hispanics or African Americans: - White ≈ 50% - Hispanic ≈ 30% - Black ≈ 20%

Public Opinion vs. Law

• Since the late 1980s, public opinion has become steadily more favorable of same-sex marriage. - True for all groups of society - Partially "cohort replacement," partially persuasion • Trends are comparable in pace to acceptance of interracial marriage (which was legalized by SCOTUS in 1967, when the majority of the country was still against it!)

explanations

• Social learning- Social & intergenerational transmission • Aggression-frustration- Anger displacement • Social Exchange- Rational actor model, calculated abuse - Aligns with social gradients of abuse

Socialization

• Socialization involves parents, peers, media • Two stages of socialization: primary and secondary

Defining Stepfamilies

• Stepfamilies now outnumber traditional nuclear families in U.S. • One out of 4 Americans is part of a stepfamily (stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, etc) -become a member of a family through marriage childbearing or adoption, voulatery kinship

Stabilization period (later)

• Stepparent: "warm friend," often not recognized as a "real" parent - Importance of supporting role

Transitional period (2-4 years)

• Stepparent: affinity seeker or polite outsider • Stepchildren: acceptance or resistance depending on age -affinity speaker- somebody who really tried to become a parent to their step children seeking closeness -polite outside- new spouse to the parents who doesn't step into parenting relationship

Causation vs Selection

• The difference between causation and selection is key for science, medicine, business, and politics! • Many things are associated (correlated) with each other, but that doesn't mean that they cause each other. • Key point: causation implies association, but association does not imply causation! -Always ask: are two phenomena associated (correlated) because one causes the other, or just by coincidence (selection)? What may be behind the coincidence?

Female Labor Force Participation (LFP)

• The movement of married women and mothers' into the labor force is one of the most important changes in the American family in the 20th Century • Led to a profound change in the gender balance of power in marriage • Definition: Labor force = employed (full or part time) + unemployed (not working but looking for work)

Evidence for equalizing hours

• Total hours worked (labor market + house) by men and women about equal in most recent studies (~65h/week) • Less "second shift" concern for current generation

Back to Sociology: Framing of Public Discourse

• U.S.: Gay marriage historically framed as moral issue (with criminal overtones until 2003) • Focus was not only on marriage per se, but on morality of being gay/lesbian • Until Lawrence v Texas 2003, same-sex intercourse was criminalized in 13 states (now legal everywhere) • It's difficult to make an equal protection argument when marital status is easily conflated with criminal behavior! • Canada: Gay marriage framed as civil rights issue • Equal protection argument, legal since 2005

Adjusted group comparison

• We could compare the test scores of children who did experience divorce to the test scores of children who did not experience divorce and who resemble each other in observed characteristics (e.g. parental income, education). • Obvious problem: Although the kids resemble each other in observed characteristics, they may still differ in unobserved characteristics

The New Extended Family

• Western nations have taken for granted that a conjugal family lives in the same household until children are grown - Childbearing outside marriage, increase in divorces, and remarriage have made this less likely - Divorce splits conjugal unit into two households - Remarriage may bring multitude of ties across households

Macro & Micro Explanations

• Women's employment Fact: Female LFP correlates quite strongly with risk of divorce Question: Why? - Competing theories 1.Opportunity effect (== having her own income should enable women to leave dissatisfying marriage) • Problem of "reverse causality": Some women join LF in anticipation of divorce 2.Income effect (decreasing economic strain should stabilize marriage) • Overall: Theories about Fem LFP and divorce not well supported by data • Men's employment • Decrease in young men's/low educ wages since 1970s may have caused marital strain and increased divorce.

Micro Explanations I

• Young age at marriage -Strong risk factor -Cannot explain macro trends -if you get your dream job you may have to move far away • Parental divorce -Strong risk factor -Intergenerational transmission of divorce - It's specific to divorce, no increased risk of divorce simply b/c of absence of second parent (re: parental death) -people whose parents got a divorce are more likely because- lack of role model of successful marriage, may expect more issues in marriage, may recognize parents success in divorce and it was what was best) • Lack of homogamy -Weak but consistent risk factor