Poverty and the Marital Behavior of Young Women

Chasing Prince Charming: Partnering consequences of holding unrealistic standards for a spouse

“…This finding is directly counter to theory suggesting that a combination of lower social desirability and lower availability of desirable partners should -on average -lead people to adopt lower standards in order to optimize their chances of partnering. Given evidence that low mate availability is, indeed, more likely to hinder people's entry into marriage when mate value is also low (e.g., McLaughlin & Lichter, 1997), these results suggest that participants with low mate value and low access to desirable partners held standards that were systematically higher than would be expected based on their circumstances. Indeed, for these individuals, holding unattainably high standards for a marriage partner appeared to be a matter of practice, rather than a deviation.…”

Testing the Economic Independence Hypothesis: The Effect of an Exogenous Increase in Child Support on Subsequent Marriage and Cohabitation

“…Several authors have concluded that although the economic independence arguments have some theoretical support, the empirical evidence is weak (e.g., Burstein 2007;McLaughlin and Lichter 1997;Oppenheimer 1997;White and Rogers 2000). The argument suggests that those with the fewest resources should be most likely to be partnered; this is not the pattern typically observed in straightforward comparisons (e.g., White and Rogers 2000) or in more sophisticated empirical analyses (e.g., Aassve 2003;Carlson et al 2004a;Clarkberg 1999;Gibson-Davis 2009;Goldscheider and Sassler 2006;Joshi et al 2009;Lichter et al 1992;Raley 1996;Sassler and Schoen 1999;Schneider 2011;Sweeney 2002;Thornton et al 1995;Xie et al 2003).…”

Marrying, Unmarrying, and Poverty Dynamics among Mothers with Children Living at Home

“…Some have argued that reducing or eliminating marriage disincentives incorporated into existing policies, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, and providing financial incentives to marry may be a more effective approach (Horn and Sawhill 2001). Others argue that more emphasis should be on prevention of nonmarital births (Lichter 2001;Lichter et al 2003) rather than providing programs that are designed to encourage marriage and discourage divorce because we know little about marital behaviors among low-income women or whether these programs would be successful with unmarried parents (Dion et al 2003;Harris 1996;Lichter et al 2003;McLaughlin and Lichter 1997). Given the limitations on public assistance benefits under the 1996 PRWORA and the growing emphasis on marriage in the reauthorization of welfare reform laws, it is important that we understand the relationship between changes in marital status and poverty dynamics.…”