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Partnership patterns in the United States and across Europe: the role of education and country context

Partnership patterns in the United States and across Europe: the role of education and country context
Partnership patterns in the United States and across Europe: the role of education and country context
Patterns of partnership formation and dissolution are changing dramatically across the Western world. Some scholars have argued that women's trajectories of union formation and dissolution are diverging by education, with the higher educated postponing but eventually marrying and the lower educated more likely to cohabit or divorce if they do marry. At the same time, the variation in partnership behavior has also increased across countries, suggesting that country context plays an important role. Here, we use latent class growth models to compare the educational gradient of partnership trajectories in the United States and 14 countries in Europe and investigate the role of education and country context. Our results indicate a consistent positive educational gradient for partnership patterns showing the postponement of marriage, regardless of whether marriage was preceded by cohabitation, but a less consistent gradient for patterns reflecting long-term cohabitation and union dissolution. Although the US results show evidence of an educational divergence in marriage and union dissolution, the evidence from the other countries is weak. In addition, country context explains more of the variation in class membership than education, with context becoming more important over time. The divergence in behaviors across country contexts suggests that social, cultural, political, and economic developments are essential for understanding changes in partnership formation and dissolution.
0037-7732
251-282
Perelli-Harris, Brienna
9d3d6b25-d710-480b-8677-534d58ebe9ed
Lyons-Amos, Mark
ceedb006-c671-4e2d-8fed-bef1cf40603d
Perelli-Harris, Brienna
9d3d6b25-d710-480b-8677-534d58ebe9ed
Lyons-Amos, Mark
ceedb006-c671-4e2d-8fed-bef1cf40603d

Perelli-Harris, Brienna and Lyons-Amos, Mark (2016) Partnership patterns in the United States and across Europe: the role of education and country context. Social Forces, 95 (1), 251-282. (doi:10.1093/sf/sow054).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Patterns of partnership formation and dissolution are changing dramatically across the Western world. Some scholars have argued that women's trajectories of union formation and dissolution are diverging by education, with the higher educated postponing but eventually marrying and the lower educated more likely to cohabit or divorce if they do marry. At the same time, the variation in partnership behavior has also increased across countries, suggesting that country context plays an important role. Here, we use latent class growth models to compare the educational gradient of partnership trajectories in the United States and 14 countries in Europe and investigate the role of education and country context. Our results indicate a consistent positive educational gradient for partnership patterns showing the postponement of marriage, regardless of whether marriage was preceded by cohabitation, but a less consistent gradient for patterns reflecting long-term cohabitation and union dissolution. Although the US results show evidence of an educational divergence in marriage and union dissolution, the evidence from the other countries is weak. In addition, country context explains more of the variation in class membership than education, with context becoming more important over time. The divergence in behaviors across country contexts suggests that social, cultural, political, and economic developments are essential for understanding changes in partnership formation and dissolution.

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Perelli-Harris and Lyons-Amos 2016 SF.pdf - Version of Record
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Accepted/In Press date: 1 April 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 11 August 2016
Published date: 1 September 2016
Organisations: Social Statistics & Demography

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 400235
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/400235
ISSN: 0037-7732
PURE UUID: eef1ed39-3d05-439a-9008-fd4467b952da
ORCID for Brienna Perelli-Harris: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8234-4007

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Date deposited: 13 Sep 2016 11:09
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:38

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Author: Mark Lyons-Amos

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