Marriage Delay, Time to Play? Marital Horizons and Hooking Up in College

Abstract

Previous research suggests that an increasing age at first marriage has contributed to the prevalence of sexual hookups on U.S. college campuses. In this article, we use life course and marital horizons theories to analyze the influence of ideal age at first marriage on hooking up among unmarried heterosexual college students. Analyses of the Online College Social Life Survey (N = 17,981) show a positive association between ideal age at first marriage and hookups for most students, but not for students whose mothers have no post-secondary education, Asian men, Asian women, and Latina women. Variation in ideal marriage timing does not account for gender, racial/ethnic, and class gaps in hookup participation. Results are discussed with reference to the role of sexuality in processes of stratification throughout young adulthood.

Social Motivations for College Hookups

“…While many students list forming a relationship as a motivation for hooking up (Garcia and Reiber 2008 ), hooking up has also been conceptualized as a “placeholder” for serious relationships and marriage while college students pursue education, career and personal development opportunities in a social context in which marriages more commonly occur at older ages, especially among the more educated (Bogle 2008 ; Hamilton and Armstrong 2009 ; Kefalas et al 2011 ). However, not all college students embrace the hookup scripts, and ideal age of first marriage may be less strongly related to hookups for students who are socially excluded from hookup culture (Allison and Risman 2017 ).…”

“…Distinct racial/ethnicity, class and age differences in marital timing expectations and peer and parent marriage rates can also shape group-based differences in hookup motivations and participation (Allison and Risman 2017 , Hamilton and Armstrong 2009 ; Mullen 2010 ). A key component of marital horizons theory is that social expectations related to ideal age and timing of marriage, or “marriage mentalities” vary by race, gender and class (Carroll et al 2007 ; Halpern-Meekin 2012 ; Willoughby and Hall 2015 ).…”

“…Working class students typically already take on adult roles and are more likely to be in committed relationships and marry earlier than their more privileged counterparts when they do marry, but ultimately are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce in the long run, potentially leading to lower marriage rates among parents and peers (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013 ; England and Bearak 2012 ; Kefalas et al 2011 ; Uecker and Stokes 2008 ). Students of color are less likely than White students to see marriage delay as normative (Allison and Risman 2017 ). Yet compared to white students, Black students may have fewer peers and be less likely to have parents that are married, given race-based differences in marriage rates and high rates of racial homophily (McClintock 2010 ; Raley et al 2015 ).…”

“…This research has also tended to examine hookup or casual sex motivations as distinct, and only limited research has examined whether certain motivations may “cluster” together. Finally, while past research has found a positive association between hooking up and having an older ideal age at marriage, and distinct patterns in hookups and desire for more hookup opportunities by race, age and sexual orientation (Allison and Risman 2017 ; Kuperberg and Padgett 2016 ), research has not examined whether specific hookup motivations differ by race, age, religiosity, ideal age at marriage, or other social contextual measures of marriage such as the marital status of parents or peers or the education (and therefore educational experiences) of parents, with past demographic comparisons of motivations only examining gender or partner type differences (Weitbrecht and Whitton 2020 ). We add to this literature by using an originally collected pilot dataset to examine social motivations for hookups, and differences by race, age, gender, religiosity, mother’s college education, ideal age at marriage, and marital status of parents and peers.…”

Beyond hookup culture: Current trends in the study of college student sex and where to next

“…The hookup script allows men and women to seek out sexual encounters without the expectation for a relationship to develop, and the growth of hookup culture has been attributed to changes to traditional gender roles and more permissive attitudes toward sex outside of marriage (Allison & Risman, ; Bogle, ; Wade, ; Wilkins & Dalessandro, ). Hookup culture is also associated with the rise in age of first marriage, with Allison and Risman () finding a positive relationship between a student's ideal age of first marriage and the number of hookups they engage in. The emphasis on emotional before physical intimacy found in “traditional” dating scripts is reversed in the hookup script, facilitated by campus environments where young adults are living in close proximity to potential sexual partners of the same age and where bars and campus parties abound (Armstrong & Hamilton, ; Bogle, ).…”