Suchergebnisse

Marriage markets have become increasingly filled with those who already have children, which may discourage marriage. Research has generally failed to assess the role of prospective stepchildren in new union formation, particularly from the point of view of the men who might become their stepfathers. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), the authors examine willingness to marry someone who already has children as well as partners who have been previously married, are of a different religion or race, or are unlikely to hold a steady job. The most consistent determinants of attitudes toward stepparenthood are related to exposure to and/or approval of other nontraditional families, particularly the experience of own parenthood. This suggests that these unions could become more common in the future.

Cet article traite des effets de la composition familiale durant l'enfance sur les modalités de départ du foyer parental, c'est-à-dire sur le moment auquel les jeunes partent et sur la direction qu'ils prennent. Les données utilisées proviennent de la National Survey of Families and Households, enquête rétrospective menée aux États-Unis en 1987 auprès de 13 017 adultes et portant sur leur vie de famille passée et actuelle. En combinant le principe des tables de mortalité et l'analyse de régression, les auteurs font appel à une analyse multivariée à risques proportionnels concurrents afin d'évaluer les probabilités de départ correspondant à chaque « destination » (mariage, emploi, service militaire etc.), les risques associés aux autres destinations importantes étant maintenus constants.
Les ruptures familiales accroissent les probabilités de départ pour toutes les destinations, sauf les études supérieures. L'appartenance des parents à une classe sociale inférieure, mesurée par leur niveau d'instruction et de prestige professionnel, exerce un effet similaire. L'impact de ces deux facteurs est particulièrement marqué chez les jeunes âgés de quinze à dix-huit ans. Pour les auteurs, ces résultats illustrent le rôle que joue le foyer familial en fournissant aux jeunes les ressources nécessaires à un passage à l'âge adulte réussi, ou au contraire en les incitant à partir prématurément ou à effectuer des choix de vie qui ne les mèneront que difficilement à la maturité, à la stabilité et à l'indépendance.

This article examines union entrance among never-married young men, focusing on whether the importance of a man's being economically established to marry has decreased in this new era of cohabitation and working wives. The authors test this assumption by examining marriage and cohabitation as competing risks to see whether the importance of employment has changed between the cohorts of the 1970s and 1990s. Data are from the National Survey of the Labor Force Experience of Young Men and the National Survey of Families and Households. The results show that Controlling cohabitation as a competing risk makes some difference in models of marriage, because marriage is somewhat more selective. More important changes reflect the decline in the importance of employment and the increased role of values. Indirect indicators, such as race, region, and childhood family structure, and direct measures of gender role attitudes have become critical influences on men's likelihood of union formation.

This study examined the association between paternal and maternal employment changes and changes in the frequency of fathers praising, showing affection, disciplining, and reading to children. Data were drawn from the Young Adult supplement to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979). Supporting economic theory, fathers were more involved when they and their partner were employed full time and were less involved when their employment exceeded that of their partner. Although fathers tended to be less involved when they worked less, fathers who held traditional gender role attitudes were more involved than those who held nontraditional gender role attitudes. The results suggest the important part fathers' attitudes and values have in influencing their involvement with children under differing employment conditions.

The two parts of the gender revolution have been evolving side by side at least since the 1960s. The first part, women's entry into the public sphere, proceeded faster than the second part, men's entry into the private sphere. Consequently, many employed mothers have carried a greater burden of paid and unpaid family support than fathers throughout the second half of the 20th century. This constituted women's "second shift," depressing fertility. A central focus of this paper is to establish second shift trends during the second half of the 20th century and their effects on fertility. Our analyses are based on data on cohort fertility, male and female labor force participation, and male and female domestic hours worked from 11 countries in Northern Europe, Western/central Europe, Southern Europe, and North America between 1960/70 and 2000/2014. We find that the gender revolution had not generated a turnaround, i.e. an increase in cohort fertility, by the end of the 20th century. Nevertheless, wherever the gender revolution has made progress in reducing women's second shift, cohort fertility declined the least; where the second shift is large and/or has not been reduced, cohort fertility has declined the most.

Most European countries, including Sweden, have witnessed considerable postponement of first births over the past several decades, and societal gender equality has been mentioned among the central reasons for the delay in childbearing. Continued postponement of parenthood over the life course can result in "final childlessness," i.e. the individual will reach the end of his/her reproductive period without having become a parent. As levels of final childlessness have been increasing in most European countries, studies of childlessness have become more common. However, most of these studies deal exclusively with women, and the theorizing regarding what leads to final childlessness, particularly among men, is clearly underdeveloped. In this paper we will contribute to this research area by investigating the long-term relationships between attitudes toward domestic gender equality and men's transition to parenthood in Sweden. Our dependent variable is a close approximation of "final childlessness." We use Swedish panel survey data on attitudes to the gender division of labor among still childless young adults aged 22–30 in 1999, combined with register data on births in the period 1999–2012. The article shows that the initial delay in becoming fathers evidenced by more egalitarian men is not made up in the long term.

Previous research in industrialized countries finds that attitudes toward gender equality are affected by family-related transitions as young adults with egalitarian attitudes based on growing equality between the sexes in the public sphere of education and work encounter a much less equal situation in the private sphere of the family. Sweden, however, is a society known for its emphasis on gender equality in the family. This study examines the effect of family transitions on attitudes toward gender equality, asking whether egalitarian attitudes can withstand changing family transitions in Sweden. Using longitudinal data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we examine six different family transitions and three measures of attitudes toward gender equality for men and women, with only three significant findings across 18 coefficients. We conclude that most Swedish young adults possess "enduring attitudes," likely because there is strong state support for families and gender sharing in the private sphere.

This article argues that the trends normally linked with the second demographic transition (SDT) may be reversed as the gender revolution enters its second half by including men more centrally in the family. We develop a theoretical argument about the emerging consequences of this stage of the gender revolution and review research results that bear on it. The argument compares the determinants and consequences of recent family trends in industrialized societies provided by two narratives: the SDT and the gender revolution in the public and private spheres. Our argument examines differences in theoretical foundations and positive vs. negative implications for the future. We focus primarily on the growing evidence for turnarounds in the relationships between measures of women's human capital and union formation, fertility, and union dissolution, and consider evidence that men's home involvement increases union formation and fertility and decreases union instability. Although the family trends underlying the SDT and the gender revolution narratives are ongoing and a convincing view of the phenomenon has not yet emerged, the wide range of recent research results documenting changing, even reversing relationships suggests that the gender approach is increasingly the more fruitful one.

This special issue (like the preceding one) is designed to highlight research on men's increased involvement in their families, focusing both on the antecedents that are linked with their involvement and on the consequences that may follow, and to show that such research is consistent with our theoretical view that the ongoing gender revolution has two parts. The first half, in which the "separate spheres" are broached by women's increased participation in paid work, strained the family; the second, in which the separation between the spheres is finally being dissolved by men's taking an active role in their families by contributing to the care of their children and homes, strengthens the family. The previous issue focused on Scandinavia, where both halves of the gender revolution are more advanced than in other industrialized countries; this issue, although not neglecting Scandinavia, includes not only research on the United States but also cross-national studies.