Recent decades have brought significant social changes in the industrialized West that may influence young adults’ attitudes about intimate relationships, including changes in gender expectations and behaviors and changes in sexual attitudes and practices. We used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (N=14,121) to compare men to women, and sexual minorities to heterosexuals, on ratings of the importance of love, faithfulness, commitment, financial security, and racial homogamy for successful relationships. We found that nearly all young adults adhere to dominant relationship values inherent in the romantic love ideology; however, we found modest but significant differences by gender and sexual identity in relationship values. Significant interactions demonstrated that gender and sexual identity intersect to uniquely influence relationship views.

More than a million people reported their race as American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) in the 2000 U.S. Census but did not do so in the 1990 Census. We ask: (1) Which subgroups had the greatest numerical growth? (2) Which subgroups had the greatest proportional increase? And (3) are the 2000 single-race AIANs and the 1990 AIANs the same set of people? We use full-count and high-density decennial census data; adjust for birth, death, and immigration; decompose on age, gender, Latino origin, education, and birth state; and compare the observed subgroup sizes in 2000 to the sizes expected based on 1990 counts. The largest numerical increases were among adolescent and middle-aged non-Latinos, non-Latino women, and adults with no college degree. Latinos, women, highly-educated adults, and people born in Eastern states had the largest proportionate gains. The ability to report multiple races in 2000 and the new federal definition of “American Indian” may have especially affected these groups, though personal identity changes are probably also involved. We find that thousands of new Latino AIANs reported only one race in 2000. Also, many 1990 AIANs reported multiple races in 2000. Thus, the 1990 AIANs and 2000 single-race AIANs are not always the same individuals.

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Limited research has specifically examined long-term heterosexual cohabiters (LTHCs), whose lengthy unions challenge the notion that cohabitation is a life stage. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 48 LTHCs, this article identifies six themes that LTHCs use to talk about their attitudes toward marriage. Three of these themes highlight ways in which heterosexuals are trying to construct anti-oppressive heterosexual identities. These six themes are especially structured by social class, elucidating a broader class-based bifurcation of family life in the United States. These findings challenge existing paradigms about cohabitation and illuminate the diversity of reasons people choose to cohabitate. Implications for broader shifts in intimate life are discussed.In recent decades, the industrialized West has experienced significant changes in how people construct families, including widespread growth in cohabitation. While the fight for marriage equality for same-sex couples intensifies in the United States, a growing number of heterosexuals, paradoxically, are opting out of marriage (Kennedy and Bumpass 2008). Limited research has specifically examined the growing population of long-term heterosexual cohabiters (hereafter "LTHCs"), whose lengthy unions challenge the notion that cohabitation is a phase rather than an end in itself. This is partially because of current demographic trends: nine out of ten cohabiting unions either dissolve or transition into marriage within five years (Lichter, Qian, and Mellott 2006). This article builds upon prior research by focusing on the marital attitudes of LTHCs. Following in the vein of prior research that examines the meaning underlying people's "unconventional" life decisions (e.g., Edin and Kefalas 2005), this study elucidates how broad transformations in family life have freed heterosexuals to enact new models of intimacy in contemporary society.Drawing upon 48 in-depth interviews with people in heterosexual couples who have lived together unmarried four years or longer, I examine why LTHCs delay or forgo marriage altogether. I find six themes (Risk Aversion, Marriagefree, Marriage Boycott, Sexism Dissent, American Dreamer, and Economic Disincentives) that LTHCs invoke in accounting for their marital attitudes. This study contributes to scholarship on cohabitation in four ways. First, I show how understandings of marriage among LTHCs may differ from those of heterosexual cohabiters overall. Second, I highlight how broad shifts in family life and the meaning of marriage shape how LTHCs think *Direct all correspondence to Mr. Timothy A. Ortyl,

Celebrities breaking up, making up, and having kids out of wedlock. Politicians confessing to extramarital affairs and visits to prostitutes. Same-sex couples pushing for, and sometimes getting, legal recognition for their committed relationships. Today's news provides a steady stream of stories that seem to suggest that lifelong love and (heterosexual) marriage are about as dated as a horse and carriage. Social conservatives have been sounding the alarm for some time about the social consequences of the decline of marriage and the rise of unwed parenting for children and for society at large. Are we really leaving behind the old model of intimacy, or are these changes significant but not radical? And what are the driving forces behind the change we see? How and Why Intimacy Is Changing Two prominent sociologists have offered different but related theories about what is happening to intimacy in modern Western nations today. The British theorist Anthony Giddens argues that we are witnessing a "transformation of intimacy," and the American family scholar Andrew Cherlin suggests that we are witnessing the "deinstitutionalization" of marriage.

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Celebrities breaking up, making up, and having kids out of wedlock. Politicians confessing to extramarital affairs and visits to prostitutes. Same-sex couples pushing for, and sometimes getting, legal recognition for their committed relationships. Today's news provides a steady stream of stories that seem to suggest that lifelong love and (heterosexual) marriage are about as dated as a horse and carriage. Social conservatives have been sounding the alarm for some time about the social consequences of the decline of marriage and the rise of unwed parenting for children and for society at large. Are we really leaving behind the old model of intimacy, or are these changes significant but not radical? And what are the driving forces behind the change we see? How and Why Intimacy Is Changing Two prominent sociologists have offered different but related theories about what is happening to intimacy in modern Western nations today. The British theorist Anthony Giddens argues that we are witnessing a "transformation of intimacy," and the American family scholar Andrew Cherlin suggests that we are witnessing the "deinstitutionalization" of marriage.