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Title: Economic Viability And Marriage: Life Course Transitions White and African Americans. 1967-1993
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Kim, Joshua Masnick
Economic Viability And Marriage: Life Course Transitions White and African Americans. 1967-1993
Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University, May 1999
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Event History; Life Course; Marital Status; Marriage; Wage Dynamics; Wage Gap; Wages, Young Men

This dissertation examines changes in employment and marital patterns of young American men between 1967 and 1993. The data utilized to describe the changing relationship between economic viability and marital family formation are a two-cohort longitudinal dataset constructed by merging the Young Men's (NLS) and Youth (NLSY) samples of the National Longitudinal Surveys. The time frames covered by the two cohorts correspond to years of increasing real wages and high rates of marital family formation (NLS, 1967 to 1981), and the onset of economic restructuring, declining real wages, and a retreat from marital family formation (NLSY, 1979 to 1993). Continuous time (Cox regression) and discrete time (logistic regression) event history analytical techniques are utilized in the analysis of changes in economic viability and marriage between the NLS and NLSY cohorts. The findings of this research indicate that the ability of young men to transition to adult work and family roses has bifurcated significantly by educational attainment. High school-educated men have endured approximately a twenty percent decline in rates of reaching secure, non-poverty employment during young adulthood. The gap in economic viability between high school and college educated men has grown substantially between the cohorts, with the slippage in the earnings and employment levels of high school educated men accounting for almost all of this inequality. The increased bifurcation in levels of economic viability across the cohorts has resulted in a significant decline in the probabilities of marital family formation during young adulthood. The single most important factor in explaining the retreat from marriage among high school-educated men is the diminished ability of this group to achieve economic viability during young adulthood. This finding lends support to the economic provider hypothesis that posits that the narrowing of the economic structure for young men is the most significant causal factor behind declines in marital family formation. This polarization in the assumption of adult work and family roles by educational level has become an entrenched feature of the early adult life course.
Bibliography Citation
Kim, Joshua Masnick. Economic Viability And Marriage: Life Course Transitions White and African Americans. 1967-1993. Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University, May 1999.