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The article explores the relationship with data from a nation with a substantially different social context, Japan. American research on suicide has been based largely on American samples. Little is known about whether the results of this work, such as the link between divorce and suicide, will be replicated for nations with substantially different institutional and cultural structures. The present paper tests the marital integration theory of suicide with data from Japan. Briefly, the marital integration theory holds that as bonds to marriage weaken, suicide risk increases. Further, the kinship system in Japan is apparently more integrated than it is in the United States. For example, in Japan 37.3% of the elderly lived in three-generation households compared to only 0.5% of the elderly in the United States. Durkheim's theory of social integration and suicide emphasizes the subordination of the individual to group life as a prophylactic against suicide. Individualism in family life was emerging as the pattern for the future at the time of Durkheim's study. It is anticipated that a rising divorce rate should affect suicide risk for several groups: divorced persons; separated persons who are contemplating divorce; married persons with severe marital problems; and the children in such families.

This paper examines relationships between 2 dimensions of social integration (community participation and affective community resources) and job and marital quality. Data from the 1995 National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (n = 1,816) indicate that the level of community participation is unrelated or negatively related to job and marital quality, whereas affective community resources show positive associations with job and marital quality. Relationships between community participation and affective community resources and job stress are partially mediated by work-to-family conflict and facilitation. Family-to-work conflict and facilitation partially mediate relationships between affective community resources and marital satisfaction and risk. The study takes a beginning step in establishing relationships and exploring processes that make up the work-community-family interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtually all American couples, married or cohabiting, expect sexual exclusivity of one another. This article asks why some people are sexually exclusive while others have sex with someone besides their mate. Previous research has linked personal values, sexual opportunities, and quality of the marital relationship to extramartial sex. This paper integrates these findings in a multivariate model that incorporates factors informing sexual decision making as well as demographic "risk factors." Nationally representative survey data show higher likelihood of sexual infidelity among those with stronger sexual interests, more permissive sexual values, lower subjective satisfaction with their union, weaker network ties to partner, and greater sexual opportunities. With these factors controlled, gender differences are substantially reduced or eliminated, although racial effects persist.Key Words: Cohabitation, extramarital sex, marriage, sexual behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article uses the National Survey of Families and Households to investigate effects of individual characteristics, parental background, and childhood living arrangements on adults' attitudes toward marriage, divorce, and nonmarital childbearing. This paper investigates the determinants of adults' attitudes toward marriage, divorce, and unmarried motherhood. These attitudes may be important for interpreting group differences in family behavior. Attitudes toward marriage, divorce, and non-marital childbearing are also important because it is through low rates of marriage and high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing that female-headed families are created. Yet prior studies have not examined attitudes toward unmarried motherhood. To be sure, prior studies examine attitudes toward other aspects of family life, but few employ nationally representative samples. Thus, while prior research provides important insights into understanding the correlates of attitudes toward marriage and divorce, these studies are limited in the determinant factors considered, they are often not generalizable to the national U.S. population, and they tell nothing about attitudes toward unmarried motherhood. This study, using national survey data, is a more comprehensive investigation of these attitudes. It includes both individual and parent characteristic and captures a wider variety of childhood family experiences.

The article uses the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the relationship between premarital cohabitation and marital instability among United States women born between 1928 and 1957. The significance of the rapid and widespread increase in premarital cohabitation that began in the last 1960s is only beginning to be appreciated. The alternative explanation generally offered for why cohabitation decreases marital stability is that cohabitation selects people who, in one way or another, are less committed to a permanent relationship. Thus the higher level of marital dissolution observed is not attributable to the effects of cohabitation itself, but because cohabitation attracts people who are less committed to lasting relationships. Implicit in the selection explanation is the idea that as cohabitation becomes more common, it should hive less effect on marital stability. If a larger proportion of the population cohabits, there is simply less latitude for selection. Previous cohabiters compared to noncohabitaters, tend to be at a greater differential risk of dissolution during the early durations of marriage. That is consistent with a view that emphasizes the importance of the transition to marriage, and argues that cohabiters adjust their behaviors and expectations after marriage.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of divorced persons in the United States during the last decade, resulting in a need for close examination of the factors associated with the adjustment to marital separation. This paper reports the effect of the legal process in one state--Pennsylvania--on adjustment to marital separation. Two hundred and five individuals separated no longer than 26 months completed in-depth. face-to-face interviews about their marriages, the failure of their marriages. and the aftermath of marital separation. Over half of the respondents indicated dissatisfaction with the legal process and 84 percent desired a change in the present Pennsylvania law. Descriptive analyses indicate a wide range of problems with the legal system experienced by persons during their separation. Cross-tabular and multivariate analyses examined the degree to which such experiences influenced reported subsequent adjustment No significant relationships were bund between any of the identified problems of the adversary legal system and adjustment. The data suggest that, although the majority of respondents found fault or encountered difficulty with the legal system. these problems did not necessarily result in reported poorer adjustment following the separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Our goal is to show how premarital cohabitation's association with marital dissolution can be measured consistently over time. Background: Rosenfeld and Roesler (2019) showed that premarital cohabitation led to lower rates of marital dissolution early in marital duration, but higher rates of marital dissolution after a few years of marital duration. Analysis based on marriage cohorts can erroneously appear to show that the association between premarital cohabitation and marital dissolution has disappeared in the most recent cohort. Method: We use discrete time event history models to study the association between premarital cohabitation and marital dissolution across calendar time and across marriage cohorts, with data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). We examine a variety of modeling strategies and data filters including those in Manning, Smock, and Kuperberg's (MSK) comment to show how different data and modeling choices can bias the results. Results: MSK's analysis rests on simple misunderstandings of our models. MSK discarded more than 70% of the valid couple years available in the NSFG data, and then used the resulting lower statistical power to declare a key interaction insignificant. MSK treat children as a time‐invariant variable despite the fact that the presence of children changes over the course of relationships. MSK discard one wave of the data without explanation. All of these choices affect the outcome. Conclusion: Our prior result stands: premarital cohabitation consistently predicts higher rates of marital dissolution in the U.S. Research into marital dissolution should be made more robust, transparent, and replicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a correction on the General Social Surveys data reported by the author in one of his papers, previously published in this journal. The author notes that, in his previous analysis of data from the General Social Surveys conducted to estimate the trend in the success of marriages in the United States, he failed to weigh the data on number of adults in the household. The author apparently overestimated the extent of the changes. The author further clarifies that failure to weight the data generally made the measures of success too low and made two of the three measures of failure too high, and it also apparently led to an overestimation of the decline in the probability of marital success. However, the indicated decline can still appropriately be labeled substantial for an 11-year period, and thus the main conclusion of the article is still supported. The author found some important differences between the weighted and non-weighted data, and that prompted him to recomputed, all of the data from full probability samples reported in the 1991 article with weighting on number of persons in the household age 18 and older.

Although the association of being married and a lower mortality rate has been well established, most previous research on marital status and mortality did not consider potential change in this relationship over time. In this study, I adopted a survey cohort perspective to examine both overall and cause-specific mortality trends by marital status from 1986 to 2000 in the United States. On the basis of data from the National Health Interview Survey-Longitudinal Mortality Follow-up ( = 517,314), I found that mortality generally decreased or remained stable for the married from the 1986 to 2000 NHIS cohort, except for diabetes deaths. There is evidence showing divergent mortality trends between the married and unmarried, especially the widowed. Race and gender variations are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to examine the cross-cultural consistency of several patterns of couple communication, 363 participants from four different countries (Brazil, Italy, Taiwan, and the United States) completed self-report measures about communication and satisfaction in their romantic relationships. Across countries, constructive communication was positively associated with relationship satisfaction, whereas demand/withdraw communication was negatively associated with relationship satisfaction. Woman demand/man withdraw communication was significantly more likely than man demand/woman withdraw communication. Also, some evidence suggested women wanted greater closeness versus independence in their relationships than did men. Differences between partners in desire for closeness versus independence were associated with greater demand/withdraw communication. The possible bases for the demand/withdraw pattern of communication and its gender linkage are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free time has the potential to reduce time pressures, yet previous studies paradoxically report increases in free time concurrent with increases in feeling rushed. Using U.S. time diary data from 708 individuals in 1975 and 964 individuals in 1998, we review the evidence on trends in free time and subjective perceptions of feeling rushed, and reexamine the relationship between free time and time pressure. We find that women's time pressure increased significantly between 1975 and 1998 but men's did not. In addition, the effects of objective time constraints vary by gender. Whereas more free time reduces men's perceptions of feeling rushed at both time points, among women, free time marginally reduced time pressure in 1975 but no longer reduced time pressure in 1998. Our findings suggest that persistent inequality in gendered time-use patterns is paralleled by gendered experiences of time pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between private safety nets and economic outcomes among 2,818 low-income single mothers in three U.S. counties in the 1990s. I define private safety nets as the potential to draw upon family and friends for material or emotional support if needed. Using a combination of survey and administrative records data collected for the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies, I find that human capital deficits, depressive symptoms, and low self-efficacy are associated with having less private safety net support, suggesting that social network disadvantages compound individual-level disadvantages. I also find that mothers with strong private safety nets worked more, earned more, and were less reliant on welfare compared with mothers with more meager private safety nets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighborhood conditions are related to children's externalizing behavior, although few processes that help explain this association have been identified. With data from 189 primarily low-income Anglo and Mexican American families, we tested a stress process model that included 3 potential mediators of this relationship. The results showed that child stressful life events, association with deviant peers, and parent-child conflict mediated the relationship between neighborhood context and child externalizing behavior when household income and maternal depression were controlled. The model explained more than 25% of the variance in externalizing behavior. Furthermore, differences in results for families with a U.S.-born versus Mexico-born mother showed that neighborhood influences on families and children may be quite complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use data from a sample of divorced parents in Wisconsin (N = 1,392) to examine how parents describe their children's living arrangements. When the children spend substantial time in both parents' homes, both parents are less likely to use the phrase live with to describe living arrangements. When children spend most nights with their mother, mothers are more likely than fathers to state that the children live with their mother. Together, these findings suggest that family researchers no longer can rely on simple questions to capture complex living arrangements. We need clearer and more careful question wording and, in some instances, follow-up questions to accurately describe where children live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the gender differences in exchanges and parent-child relations to adult children residing in parent households in the United States. Parent-child coresidence appears to be a generally positive experience from the point of view of adult children. The authors find that daughters report doing more housework, and sons are more likely to pay room and board, but both exchanges are modest and are unrelated to each other and to the reported quality of parent-child relations. However, the study reveals that there are few differences between sons and daughters in parent-child relations and their predictors. Overall, coresidence appears to be more similar than different for adult sons and daughters. Household composition is also not generally related to the variables of interest in this study. In particular, there is no clear distinction between mother-daughter and father-son combinations. Relations with mothers appear to be more positive and more important than relations with fathers for both daughters and sons.

The article studies the prevalence of cohabitation between 1960 and 1990, and investigates the conditions leading older persons to cohabit in the United States. Cohabitation may be viewed as both a status and a process. As a process, it involves transitions among three groups, unmarried noncohahitors, unmarried cohabitors, and the married. This research focuses on cohabitation as a status. The results for both sexes in this study indicate that sex has a strong influence on cohabitation among the elderly, so much so that it would be misleading to speak of a single pattern of relationship between cohabitation and the independent variables. Being male raises the probability of cohabitation more than any other independent variable. The young-old of both sexes are much more likely to cohabit than those who are 70 or older. These reductions with age may be due to differences in a cohort's attitudes toward cohabitation, or they may be a result of interest in maintaining a significant relationship with the opposite sex.

The article presents information on a study which examines the prevalence of successful marital reconciliations among white women in the United States. The study population consists of 506 nonHispanic white women who have been married once or twice, whose first marriage occurred between 1960 and 1988, and who attempted a reconciliation in their first marriage. Results revealed that about 50% of the women who attempted a reconciliation in their first marriage became divorces and about 5% are currently separated from their spouse. It was found that approximately one-third of the women attempting a reconciliation are still married more than one year after the reconciliation began. The probability of having a successful reconciliation varies among subgroups of women. Religion has the strongest relationship with the success of a reconciliation, followed by premarital cohabitation, and age homogamy of the spouses. This study has provided some insight into the relationship between various sociodemographic variables and having a successful reconciliation. It has also, shown some areas that need further research.

The article describes the incidence, chronicity, and correlates of verbal aggression between partners in a nationally representative sample of 5,232 American couples. The last decade has provided considerable research on the causes and effects of physical aggression in the family, but much less research has been done on verbal aggression. While the effects of physical aggression are often immediately apparent in the form of bruises and broken bones, the effects of verbal aggression are often less readily observed. In addition to the lack of empirical information, there is also a lack of theoretical work on the antecedents of verbal aggression within the family. There are, however, what can be called folk theories. An important theoretical issue which the results of this study may clarify is whether verbal aggression against a partner is fundamentally similar to or different, from a physical attack. If verbal aggression is similar to physical aggression, the findings will be similar to those reported in the literature. Children are a source of both pleasure and conflict. Each child poses unique problems, and parents often disagree about how to deal with these problems.

The article examines the meaning of informal unions among mainland Puerto Rican women with data from a survey of Puerto Rican women residing in New York City and its surrounding counties in 1985. The past two decades have brought marked changes in marital behavior in the United States, including a rising age at marriage, high rates of marital, disruption, and a dramatic increase in nonmarital cohabitation. The concurrence of the decline of legal marriage and the rise of cohabitation has generated interest in the connections between the two developments. Specifically, it has led to questions about the meaning of cohabitation, especially how it should be viewed relative to singlehood and legal marriage. Knowledge of the prevalence of cohabitation and its role in the family building process has expanded rapidly in the last few years due to the increasing availability of cohabitation history data from representative samples of the US. population. Using data from a survey of Puerto Rican women residing in the New York Metropolitan area in 1985, researchers compare the informal unions of Puerto Ricans to both singlehood and legal marriage. The discrepancy between levels of current cohabitation and lifetime experience illustrates a fundamental characteristic of cohabiting relationships: Most are short-lived, Within the first several years, most cohibiting unions are transformed to legal marriages or dissolved.

The article presents a report on marital cohabitation. Premarital cohabitation has become a stage of courtship for an increasing proportion of U.S. marriages. Social theorists and some cohabiters believed that cohabitation would improve marital quality and stability by providing a more stringent test of the relationship than offered-by traditional engagement. Explanations for this finding typically focus on the selection of individuals and couples into cohabitation. One explanation is that those who choose to cohabit rather than marry perceive themselves or the relationship as poorer risks in terms of long-term happiness and commitment. A second selectivity explanation is that cohabiters are less committed to the institution of marriage, and therefore more likely than noncohabiters to dissolve a problematic marriage. A third explanation is that cohabiters define marriage in more individual than couple terms, so that cohabiters view marital quality as more central to the relationship's stability than noncohabiters.

The article presents a study comparing samples of United States and German adolescents on two measures of self-esteem and several measures of perceived parental behaviors. The increased interest among social scientists in studying self construct; over the past several decades is reflected in the extensive literature on self-esteem. In this literature, self esteem has been related, to numerous measures of personal well-being and social interaction. The cultural difference emerges, however, when considering more specific forms of positive parent-adolescent relationships. In the United States, general relationship quality as well as a composite measure that more specifically defined support, e.g., physical affection and companionship, were both significantly related to self-esteem.

This study assesses the incidence and social correlates of the female form of the Chameleon Syndrome--an accommodative response to an environment perceived as hostile to inaappropriate sex role behavior--among a sample of American adolescents. The subjects are 3200 adolescent females and males attending junior and senior high schools in three upstate New York cities. An empirical measure of the female version of the Chameleon Syndrome is developed from responses to a group-administered questionnaire. The data show mean Chameleon Syndrome Index (female form) scores to be significantly higher among females than males. Girls whose parents are restrictive and controlling and who emphasize interpersonal relationships tend to have high Chameleon Syndrome scores. Superficial heterosexual relationships were found conducive to the development of the Chameleon Syndrome in females. The Chameleon Syndrome score among girls is also positively related to a desire to marry early and have children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]