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Author: Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes
Resulting in 4 citations.
1. Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes
A Counterfactual Approach to the Black-White Differential in Family Trends: The Effect of a 'Total Institution'
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2004. DAI-A 65/06, p. 2373, Dec 2004
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Childbearing, Premarital/Nonmarital; Discrimination, Racial/Ethnic; Divorce; Economic Well-Being; Economics of Minorities; Ethnic Studies; Family Studies; General Social Survey (GSS); Military Service; Modeling, Logit; Racial Differences; Racial Studies; Survey of Active Duty Personnel (1999)

Social scientists have noted an increasing divergence in family patterns between US blacks and whites, with the former experiencing markedly higher divorce, nonmarital childbearing and never-marrying rates. While the causality behind such racial divergence is complex, the current political climate tends to downplay economic explanations, emphasizing that differences are attributable primarily to individual and group level preferences. This dissertation exploits the military context as a unique way to reassess these issues. Most explanations forwarded for race differences in society find their counter in the military environment. For minorities, the military provides improved economic opportunity and stability. There is also evidence for an improved environment extending beyond simply socioeconomic parity, as evidenced by the military's comparatively high levels of racial desegregation and interracial marriage. Through a combination of event history and propensity score matching analyses using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I find that racial differences in family patterns, so prevalent in the civilian population, dramatically decrease or disappear. Military blacks and whites are each equally likely to marry. Divorce rates are reversed from the civilian pattern. Nonmarital childbearing is substantially reduced among blacks in the military relative to their civilian counterparts. In the second part of the dissertation I use the Survey of Active Duty Personnel to show how the military moderates many of the structural disadvantages of race. Using ordered category logistic regression, I find that, compared to military whites, military blacks consider their lives vastly improved from civilian life along all of those elements identified as lacking for many black Americans in civilian society. This is the case not only in ratings of improved economic conditions and related benefits, but also in ratings of overall happiness. The third part of the dissertation explores the "social contact hypothesis," comparing veterans with nonveterans in their behaviors and opinions related to race. Exploratory analyses using the General Social Survey show an association between increased tenure in the military and a pronounced lessening of racially discriminatory attitudes among white males. Overall, this dissertation highlights the experimental utility of the military environment in reevaluating traditional approaches to race stratification.
Bibliography Citation
Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes. A Counterfactual Approach to the Black-White Differential in Family Trends: The Effect of a 'Total Institution'. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2004. DAI-A 65/06, p. 2373, Dec 2004.
2. Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes
The Black-White Gap in Marital Dissolution Among Young Adults: What Can a Counterfactual Scenario Tell Us?
Social Problems 53,3 (August 2006): 421-441.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2006.53.3.421
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of California Press
Keyword(s): Divorce; Family Formation; Family Studies; Military Personnel; Military Service; Racial Differences

One of the most heavily studied subfields of family sociology is that of racial disparities in family formation trends. While divergent black-white patterns in divorce are well documented, their underlying causal factors are not well understood. Debates on whether such differences are due to socioeconomic compositional differences, cultural differences, or some degree of each continue to surface in the literature. In this article, I use the U.S. military as an institutional counterfactual to larger society because, I argue, it isolates many of the conditions commonly cited in the literature to explain race differences in divorce trends. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), I find that, unlike their civilian counterparts, African American military enlistees have low divorce rates, even lower, it seems, than their fellow enlisted Caucasians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bibliography Citation
Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes. "The Black-White Gap in Marital Dissolution Among Young Adults: What Can a Counterfactual Scenario Tell Us?" Social Problems 53,3 (August 2006): 421-441.
3. Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes
When Race Makes No Difference: Marriage and the Military
Social Forces 83,2 (December 2004): 731-758.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3598346
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Keyword(s): Childbearing, Premarital/Nonmarital; Divorce; Marriage; Military Personnel; Military Service; Racial Differences

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

While "retreat from marriage" rates have been on the rise for all Americans, there has been an increasing divergence in family patterns between blacks and whites, with the former experiencing markedly higher divorce, nonmarital childbearing and never-marrying rates. Explanations generally focus on theories ranging from economic class stratification to normative differences. I examine racial marriage trends when removed from society and placed in a structural context that minimizes racial and economic stratification. I compare nuptial patterns within the military, a total institution in the Goffmanian sense, which serves as a natural control for the arguments presented in the literature on the retreat from marriage. Through a combination of event history and propensity score matching analyses using the NLSY79, I find that black-white difference in marriage patterns disappears in the military.
Bibliography Citation
Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes. "When Race Makes No Difference: Marriage and the Military." Social Forces 83,2 (December 2004): 731-758.
4. Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes
Smith, Herbert L.
Family Formation Among Women in the U.S. Military: Evidence from the NLSY
Journal of Marriage and Family 67,1 (February 2005): 1-13.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-2445.2005.00001.x/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Council on Family Relations
Keyword(s): Employment; Family Formation; Fertility; Marriage; Military Personnel; Military Service; Propensity Scores

Although female employment is associated with lower levels of completed fertility in the civilian world, we find family formation rates among U.S. military women to be comparatively high. We compare enlisted women with civilian women using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N= 3,547), the only data set to measure simultaneously the nuptiality and fertility of both populations. Using propensity score matching, we show that the fertility effect derives primarily from early marriage in the military, a surprisingly 'family-friendly' institution. This shows that specific organizational and economic incentives in a working environment may offset the more widespread contemporary social and economic factors that otherwise depress marriage and fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bibliography Citation
Lundquist, Jennifer Michelle Hickes and Herbert L. Smith. "Family Formation Among Women in the U.S. Military: Evidence from the NLSY." Journal of Marriage and Family 67,1 (February 2005): 1-13.