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Author: Landry, David J.
Resulting in 2 citations.
1. Lichter, Daniel T.
Kephart, George
McLaughlin, Diane K.
Landry, David J.
Race and the Retreat from Marriage: A Shortage of Marriageable Men?
American Sociological Review 57,6 (December 1992): 781-799.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2096123
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Family Structure; Income Dynamics/Shocks; Marriage; Racial Differences; Sex Ratios

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

We evaluate a marital search model that links the quantity and quality of available men to first marriage transitions among black women and white women in the United States. Our analysis provides a more complex assessment of the hypothesis that racial differences in transitions to first marriage reflect shortages of marriageable men in local marriage markets. We attach several indicators of local marriage market conditions (primarily sex ratios from the 1980 Census) to women's marital histories available in the 1979 through 1986 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Our discrete-time logit models support the following conclusions: (I) A shortage in the quantity and quality of available males in local areas depresses women's transitions to first marriage; (2) economic independence among women (as measured by employment and earnings) is positively associated with entry into marriage; (3) racial differences in mate availability account for a relatively small share of existing racial differences in marriage; (4) indicators of local mate availability nevertheless account for a larger proportion of, observed racial differences in transitions to first marriage than factors such as family background, welfare status and living arrangements (e.g., multigenerational family); (5) the effects of marriage market characteristics are contingent on whether women are "searching" in the marriage market; and (6) the effect of a shortage of "economically attractive" men is not simply an artifact of local demographic deficits of men to marry.
Bibliography Citation
Lichter, Daniel T., George Kephart, Diane K. McLaughlin and David J. Landry. "Race and the Retreat from Marriage: A Shortage of Marriageable Men?" American Sociological Review 57,6 (December 1992): 781-799.
2. Lichter, Daniel T.
McLaughlin, Diane K.
Kephart, George
Landry, David J.
Race, Local Mate Availability, and Transitions to First Marriage Among Young Women
Presented: Denver, CO, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1992
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Marriage; Racial Differences

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The primary objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between spouse availability at the local geographic level and the timing of marital transitions among young women in the United States. Specifically, discrete-time survival methods are used to evaluate contextual models of first marriage transitions among black and white women, linking various marriage market indicators to the individual records from the 1979-85 waves of the NLSY. Indicators of the supply (e.g., sex-ratio imbalances) and "quality" of potential mates (e.g., Wilson's Male Marriability Pool Index) are available from the 1980 Census PUMS-D file. The analytic framework draws heavily on rational choice models of mate selection and on job-search theory.
Bibliography Citation
Lichter, Daniel T., Diane K. McLaughlin, George Kephart and David J. Landry. "Race, Local Mate Availability, and Transitions to First Marriage Among Young Women." Presented: Denver, CO, Population Association of America Meetings, April 1992.