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Author: Reich, Adam
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Schneider, Daniel J.
Reich, Adam
Marrying Ain't Hard When You Got a Union Card? Labor Union Membership and First Marriage
Social Problems 61,4 (November 2014): 625-643.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2014.12316
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: University of California Press
Keyword(s): Employment; Income; Marriage; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; Unions

Over the past five decades, marriage has changed dramatically, as young people began marrying later or never getting married at all. Scholars have shown how this decline is less a result of changing cultural definitions of marriage, and more a result of men's changing access to historically consistent social and economic pre-requisites for marriage. Specifically, men's current economic standing and men's future economic security have been shown to affect their marriageability. Traditionally, labor unions provided economic standing and security to male workers. Yet during the same period that marriage has declined among young people, membership in labor unions has declined precipitously--particularly for men. In this paper we examine the relationship between union membership and first marriage and discuss the possible mechanisms by which union membership might lead to first marriage. We draw on longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-79 to estimate discrete time event-history models of first marriage entry and find that, controlling for many factors, union membership is positively and significantly associated with marriage. We show then that this relationship is largely explained by the increased income, regularity and stability of employment, and fringe benefits that come with union membership.
Bibliography Citation
Schneider, Daniel J. and Adam Reich. "Marrying Ain't Hard When You Got a Union Card? Labor Union Membership and First Marriage." Social Problems 61,4 (November 2014): 625-643.