No abstract

Given recent changes in the labor force participation and economic standing of women, we ask whether a woman's position in the labor market has become a more important determinant of her position in the marriage market. Unlike much prior research on trends over time in assortative mating, we take an individuallevel approach to the analysis and rely on improved measures of labor market position, such as measuring wives' wages before marriage and considering multiple indicators of husbands' longer term economic standing. Our analysis relies on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women (N ¼ 759) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N ¼ 767). Our results are consistent with growth over time in the importance of women's earnings potential in determining their marriage prospects.The question of who marries whom is a central organizing feature of social life. Prior research has established that people tend to seek spouses with particular characteristics and prefer to marry within their own social group (e.g., Fu, 2001;Hout, 1982;Kalmijn, 1991;Mare, 1991). Departures from homogamy have also attracted attention among social scientists because such patterns of assortative mating convey important information regarding which individuals and groups perceive themselves to be social equals. Gender asymmetries in the socioeconomic characteristics of marriage partners have been of particular interest because they are thought to reflect culturally important differences in the social and economic roles of men and women. Indeed, theory from economics and sociology suggests that marriage markets may differentially reward the economic characteristics of men and women, with good labor market position a more highly valued trait in potential husbands than potential wives.Yet recent changes in factors related to marriage in contemporary societies-particularly the improved labor market position of women and increases in their labor force participation-have contributed to social scientists' growing interest in investigating shifts over time in patterns of assortative mating. To the extent that current cohorts of women spend more of their lives in the labor market than did previous cohorts, we might expect an increased emphasis on women's economic characteristics for marriage. Indeed, a model of marriage in which both men and women seek spouses with good labor market prospects underlies much recent research on marriage timing and

This article reexamines the living arrangements of children following their parents' divorce, using Wisconsin Court Records, updating an analysis that showed relatively small but significant increases in shared custody in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These changes have accelerated markedly in the intervening years: between 1988 and 2008, the proportion of mothers granted sole physical custody fell substantially, the proportion of parents sharing custody increased dramatically, and father-sole custody remained relatively stable. We explore changes in the correlates of alternative custody outcomes, showing that some results from the earlier analysis still hold (for example, cases with higher total family income are more likely to have shared custody), but other differences have lessened (shared-custody cases have become less distinctive as they have become more common). Despite the considerable changes in marriage and divorce patterns over this period, we do not find strong evidence that the changes in custody are related to changes in the characteristics of families experiencing a divorce; rather, changes in custody may be the result of changes in social norms and the process by which custody is determined.

Changes in the living arrangements of children have implications for social policy and children's well-being. Understanding who gets custody on divorce--mother, father, or both sharing custody--can also inform our understanding of family organization and the merits of alternative theories of marriage and divorce. We examine physical-custody outcomes among recent Wisconsin divorces in an effort to understand the factors associated with shared custody as well as mother-sole custody and father-sole custody. Although mother-sole custody remains the dominant arrangement, shared custody has increased over a nine-year period. We find that the probability of shared custody increases with parent's income. Prior marital history, parents' ages, the age and gender of children, and the legal process also have an impact on the probability of shared custody. In contrast to shared custody, the probability of father-sole custody decreases with parent's income, while the relationship with other significant factors is generally similar. The notable exception is that, unlike shared custody, we find no evidence for an increase over time in the probability of father-sole custody. We also find that when the father has a higher proportion of the couple's total income, both shared custody and father-sole custody are more likely.

We estimate the extent to which rising family income inequality can be explained by changes in the earnings of married women. We develop a decomposition equation that separates single persons from married couples (decomposition by population group) and, for married couples, distinguishes the impact of wives' earnings from other sources of income (decomposition by income source). Despite the rising correlation between husbands' and wives' earnings, changes in wives' earnings do not explain a substantial portion of the increase in family income inequality. Our results contradict those of some previous analyses. The inconsistency of recent estimates can be traced to the use of a variety of conceptually different approaches in the previous literature. We clarify these approaches by explicitly distinguishing the conceptual issues, analyzing the empirical components, and providing comprehensive estimates.