The age difference between spouses and reproduction in 19th century Sweden

Rotering, P.P.P.; Bras, Hilde

doi:10.4054/demres.2019.41.37

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Attitudes, norms, and knowledge were spread within these networks. Junkka's results are very much in accordance with what Paul Rotering (2017) and Rotering and Bras (2019) has found in a couple of studies on the Skellefteå region. Rotering has also focused on the role of networks, but whereas Junkka investigated the role of voluntary associations and the characteristics of the local population, Rotering considered the family context.…”

Section: Marriage Patterns and Family Structuresupporting

confidence: 90%

A Database for the Future

Edvinsson¹,

Engberg²

2020

hlcs

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The Demographic Data Base (DDB) at the Centre for Demographic and Ageing Research (CEDAR) at Umeå University has since the 1970s been building longitudinal population databases and disseminating data for research. The databases were built to serve as national research infrastructures, useful for addressing an indefinite number of research questions within a broad range of scientific fields, and open to all academic researchers who wanted to use the data. A countless number of customised datasets have been prepared and distributed to researchers in Sweden and abroad and to date, the research has resulted in more than a thousand published scientific reports, books, and articles within a broad range of academic fields. While there has long been a clear predominance of research within the humanities and social sciences, it has always been used for research in other fields as well, for example medicine. In this article, we first give a brief presentation of the DDB and its history, characteristics, and development from the 1970s to the present. It includes an overview of the research based on the DDB databases, with a focus on the databases POPUM and POPLINK with individual-level data. A number of major traits of the research from 1973 to now have been outlined, showing the breadth of the research and highlighting some major contributions, with a focus on work that would have been very difficult to perform without data from the DDB.

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Section: Marriage Patterns and Family Structuresupporting

confidence: 90%

A Database for the Future

Edvinsson¹,

Engberg²

2020

hlcs

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“…It is expected that the larger the age gap, the more traditional the social norms of family formation. A large age gap in this literature is interpreted as women having less bargaining power in the relationships (see Rotering and Bras 2019 for an overview). I measure the age gap as the average age difference between married women and their spouses, , where is the age of a married woman, is the age of her spouse, and is the total number of married women in a municipality at the time of an election 11…”

Section: Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Persistence of Social Norms, Family Formation, and Gender Balance in Politics

Gruneau

2021

Pol & Gen

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Throughout history, most positions of political power have been held by men, and despite numerous laws and regulations aimed at increasing gender equality in society and politics, the majority of democratic assemblies remain predominantly composed of men. What makes this gender composition persistent over time? Using data from Swedish population registers from 1982 to 2014 and demographic statistics from 1749 to 1859, I study how historical social norms shape the present-day gender balance in local politics. The results show that where family formation was more traditional in the past, there are fewer women in local politics today. The analysis also shows that family formation is a likely mechanism for the transmission of social norms across generations. The findings contribute to our understanding of the historical persistence of social structures and the reasons why gender balance in politics is not easily achieved.

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“…Supporting evidence for this interpretation comes from numerous mate choice studies where men state a preference for younger women, while women state preferences for older men (Buss, 1989;Conroy-Beam & Buss, 2019;Kenrick & Keefe, 1992). Although less commonly studied, there is also some evidence that the reproductive success of a marriage is higher when the husband is older than the wife (Fieder & Huber, 2007;Helle, Lummaa, & Jokela, 2007;Kuna, Galbarczyk, Magdalena, Nenko, & Jasienska, 2018; but see Stoeckel & Chowdhury, 1984, Rotering & Bras, 2019.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared interests or sexual conflict? Spousal age gap, women's wellbeing and fertility in rural Tanzania

Lawson

Schaffnit

Hassan

et al. 2021

Evolution and Human Behavior

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The marriage of older men to younger women is common across cultures. On one hand, husband-older marriage may serve the interests of both sexes, a conclusion broadly consistent with reported gender differences in mate preferences. On the other hand, men alone may benefit from such marriages at a cost to women if seniority enables men to exert dominance in conflicts of interest. Indeed, in public health large spousal age gaps are generally deemed pathological , both a cause and consequence of gender inequalities harmful to women. We investigate these alternative models of spousal age gap using data from a cross-sectional survey of women in Mwanza, northwestern Tanzania (n=993). Consistent with the notion that spousal age gaps are a product of sexual conflict, women typically married with a larger age gap than stated ideals. However, adjusting for potential confounds, spousal age gap was not associated with fertility or the risk of divorce. Furthermore, women s mental health and autonomy in household decision-making was higher in husbandolder marriages compared to rare cases of same-age or wife-older marriage. Beyond this comparison, the magnitude of spousal age gaps was unrelated to either measure of women s wellbeing among the overwhelming majority of marriages where the husband was older. Together these findings suggest husband-older marriage does not influence marital stability, relatively large spousal age gaps are neither especially costly nor beneficial to women, and that alternative sociodemographic factors are more important in driving variation in women s wellbeing and reproductive success in this context. Our results support neither a model of mutual benefits, nor a pathological conceptualization of spousal age gaps. We conclude by both encouraging evolutionary human scientists to engage more fully with models of sexual conflict in future studies of marriage and mating, and suggesting that public health scholars consider more neutral interpretations of spousal age differences.Man crip ( i ho A hor De ail )

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The age difference between spouses and reproduction in 19th century Sweden

Cited by 12 publications

References 42 publications

A Database for the Future

A Database for the Future

The Persistence of Social Norms, Family Formation, and Gender Balance in Politics

Shared interests or sexual conflict? Spousal age gap, women's wellbeing and fertility in rural Tanzania

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