Women's changing socioeconomic position and union formation in Spain and Portugal

The changing role of employment status in marriage formation among young Korean adults

“…Among the oldest cohort it was significantly and negatively associated with the odds of first marriage, in the 1960s cohort it was negative but lost its statistical significance, and for the 1970s cohort it ultimately becomes strong and positive. This result not only provides empirical support for Oppenheimer's theoretical claim, but also implies that the economic foundation of marriage is shifting in Korea, as it is in other societies (Domínguez-Folgueras and Castro-Martín 2008;Fukuda 2013;Sweeney 2002). First, the oldest cohort of women in this study, who were born and raised in the aftermath of the Korean War, in general had very limited educational and occupational opportunities when they grow up.…”

“…One possible reason is that children from larger families take their own family size as their model and start marital life early to achieve that goal, and another is that growing up in a family with fewer resources per child may hamper the educational or occupational success that could otherwise serve as a barrier to early marriage entry (Kim 2014). Contrary to research in other countries (Blossfeld and Huinink 1991;Domínguez-Folgueras and Castro-Martín 2008), however, the current study did not find that the parent's socioeconomic resources are significantly influential. This could be because Korea did not experience its dramatic expansion of education until recent decades, and without the social-stratifying effect of education there might not be much variation in educational attainment or occupational prestige among the parents who produced these cohorts of women.…”

“…A large body of research in the United States and Europe has examined the effect of economic resources, such as income and employment status, on the timing of entry into marriage and cohabitation among young adults (Oppenheimer, Kalmijn, and Lim 1997;Sweeney 2002;Xie et al 2003;Domínguez-Folgueras and Castro-Martín 2008;Bracher and Santow 1998;Jalovaara 2012). These studies show that young adults' economic resources have a significant impact on the likelihood of union formation, and extend our understanding of marriage divergence between those with higher and lower levels of these resources.…”

The reproductive context of cohabitation in comparative perspective

“…The rapid rise in non-marital cohabitation in Spain has been accompanied by considerable childbearing and childrearing within cohabiting unions, to the extent that fully 39 percent of cohabiting couples reported children in common in the 2001 Spanish Census (Dominguez-Folgueras and Castro-Martin 2008). Birth registry data further indicate that about 20 percent of all Spanish births in 2007 occurred to cohabiting couples (Castro-Martin 2010).…”

Single motherhood and low birthweight in Spain

“…Although cohabitation is becoming increasingly common among young generations in Spain (Domínguez-Folgueras and Castro-Martín 2008) and data from the latest 2001 census confirm that cohabitation is not merely a childless stage before marriage -39% of cohabitating partners have children in common (Castro-Martín and Domínguez-Folgueras 2008)-, birth registers in Spain have traditionally collected only the legal marital status of the parents and not their de facto family situation. It is not until 2007 that information on parents' cohabiting status and on a mother's and father's home address is introduced in the birth certificate.…”