Are Pornography and Marriage Substitutes for Young Men?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 8679 November 2014 ABSTRACT Are Pornography and Marriage Substitutes for Young Men?Substitutes for marital sexual gratification may impact the decision to marry. Proliferation of the Internet has made pornography an increasingly low-cost substitute. We investigate the effect of Internet usage, and of pornography consumption specifically, on the marital status of young men. We show that increased Internet usage is negatively associated with marriage formation. Pornography consumption specifically has an even stronger effect. Instrumental variables and a number of robustness checks suggest that the effect is causal.JEL Classification: J12, O33

What Does It Mean to Be Single in Indonesia? Religiosity, Social Stigma, and Marital Status Among Never-Married Indonesian Adults

“…On the contrary, the Internet may reduce one's willingness to marry. This is because of the addictive nature of social media and dating sites as well as greater uses of pornography, which tends to lead to social isolation and reduce the likelihood of partnering (Malcolm & Naufal, 2014). Klinenberg (2012) also argues that the Internet may promote a single lifestyle as it facilitates social connections with friends and other relatives, which is essential for singles to live a happy life.…”

The State of Sex Research in MFT and Family Studies Literature: A Seventeen‐Year Content Analysis

“…Unfortunately, a thorough examination of sex research from the paradigm of family research has not been conducted since. Since that time, there have been significant changes in sexual attitudes (Keleher & Smith, 2012), sexual behaviors (Mercer et al, 2013;Twenge, Sherman, & Wells, 2017), and sexual technology (Malcolm & Naufal, 2016), each of which have an influence on relationships (Capogrosso et al, 2013;Twenge et al, 2017).…”

Pornography Use and Marriage Entry During Early Adulthood: Findings From a Panel Study of Young Americans

“…Another possible link between pornography use and entrance into marriage suggests that the connection would be more explicitly gendered based on pornography's providing a low-cost substitute for marital sex for men. Using data on men between ages 18 and 35 from the 2000-2004 cross-sectional GSS, economists Malcolm and Naufal (2016) showed that Internet use, and Internet pornography use especially, predicted a lower-likelihood of marriage. Employing an instrumental variable approach to mitigate self-selection, the authors argued that pornography use was likely serving as a marriage-substitute for men, reasoning that "If one of the reasons to get married (sexual gratification) has a low-cost alternative, then it is natural to wonder about the extent to which one can replace the other" (2017:23).…”

“…In light of the growing prevalence of pornography use in the United States, researchers have started to consider the potential implications of this use for mental and sexual health (for reviews, see Doring, 2009;Oddone-Paolucci, Genuis, & Violato, 2000;Short et al, 2012); adolescent development (for reviews, see Owens, Behun, Manning, & Reid, 2012;Peter & Valkenburg, 2016); as well as important social institutions like the family, and marriage especially. While there has been an abundance of studies looking at the association between pornography use and marital outcomes such as marital quality (see reviews in Campbell & Kohut, 2017;Manning, 2006;Newstrom & Harris, 2016;Rasmussen, 2016;Wright, Takunaga, Kraus, & Klann, 2017) and stability (for example, see Daines & Shumway, 2011;Perry, 2017a;Perry & Schleifer, 2018), few studies have empirically examined whether pornography use may be associated with whether Americans' enter into marriage (Malcolm & Naufal, 2016), and none using longitudinal data that can better establish temporal precedence. Yet there are several theoretical reasons why an association between pornography use and marriage entry would be expected.…”

“…Second, and particularly for more religious populations, marriage has historically been viewed as providing social legitimacy to sexual activity for young people (Burke, 2016;Diefendorf, 2015;Regnerus, 2007). Just as the greater cultural acceptability of casual, premarital sex may have created a disincentive to get married for these populations (see Carroll et al, 2007;Malcolm & Naufal, 2016;Regnerus, 2017), pornography use may similarly disincentivize marriage since it provides a sexual outlet that is private and freely available.…”