Erica Rodriguez

Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race by Mamadi Corra, Shannon K. Carter, J. Scott Carter, and David Knox is an article that discusses the findings from the 1973-2006 General Social Survey that assessed the interactive impact of race and gender on marital happiness over time. The data for this study was collected from the General Social Survey (GSS). Participants were randomly selected, and are nationally representative of the English speaking adults that live in noninstitutional settings in the U.S. The dependent variable of the study was the question from the General Social Survey, "Taken things all together, how would you describe your marriage?". The answer choices included, very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy. This question was included in the GSS for twenty six years from 1973-2006. The independent variables include the main explanatory variable which was a social location measure (White husbands, White wives, Black husbands, and Black wives), work status of the respondent, whether the respondent was divorced or not, having a child under 18 currently living in the home, respondent's and spouse's employment status, age, education, income, and religiosity. All together, there was a total of 24,555 respondents who were included in the study. Of the 11,606 husbands, 41.4% were White and 4.2% were Black. On the other hand, of the 12,849 wives, 46% were White and 4.6% were Black. The remaining 3.8% of the respondents married were categorized as Other in the GSS. To assess the change over time, the study was split up into four decades.The findings from this study are significant, because the p value was below 0.05. The findings show that race and gender each have independent and significant effects on respondents who are White and male who reported higher levels of marital happiness than Black and female respondents. Out of the four racial groups, White husbands had the highest levels of marital happiness. From the 1990's to the 2000's Black wives' marital happiness increased. This could be due to higher rates of employment than White women, women not being viewed as an anomaly, and a sense of belonging in the workforce for Black women. Even though women are still unqual to men, women as a group have been gaining equality with men slowly. The study also shows us that marital happiness for White wives has not changed much over time, even despite their better access to jobs and their contribution to financial success in a family. For Black husbands, marital happiness has not increased at all since the 1970's, and it could be because of the high rates of unemployment and underemployment. One limitation that is worth noting from this study was that the survey only included one measure of marital happiness.

Marital Assimilation Among Hispanics: Evidence of Declining Cultural and Economic Incorporation by Daniel T. Lichter, J. Brian Brown, Zhenchao Qian, and Julie H. Carmalt is an article that documents the changes in the time frame of 1990 and 2000 of intermarriage patterns between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. The data from the study in this article was collected from the 1990-2000 5 Percent Census Microdata Series from the Minnesota Population Center's Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Non like the study in Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, this survey was limited to 155 metropolitan areas containing at least 25 married couples having at least one Hispanic partner. The dependent variable is the metropolitan area prevalence of marriages between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. This is called "Hispanic intermarriage". This is measured in 1990 and 2000, and is measured by the number of Hispanics married to non-Hispanic Whites divided by the number of the total number of couples that include at least one Hispanic partner. The study completed in the other article was nationally representative of English speakers living in noninstitutionalized settings, but this study is limited even more. Another limitation to this study is that the sample was couples with female partners aged 20-34. The results from the study show that from 1990 to 2000 Hispanic intermarriage decreased from 33 percent to 23 percent. When the study was restricted to 155 major metropolitan areas, there was an even larger decrease from 47 percent to 33 percent. The authors argue that the group differences in socioeconomic status and cultural assimilation affect the rates of Hispanic intermarriage despite any achievements among minority people. The study shows that Hispanic intermarriage declined in the 1990's. The unexpected declines during the 1990's were associated with the many factors that include growing spatial, cultural, and economic differences between Hispanics and other groups.

Jessica Donnelly Family quiz

Jessica Donnelly

Word Count: 519

            The article, Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006, by J. Scott Carter, Shannon K. Carter, Mamadi Corra, and David Knox, examines the methods and findings of a survey regarding race and gender and their impact on marital happiness. The data was collected from the General Social Survey from the years 1973-2006. They collected responses from 24,455 married respondents. They respondents were randomly drawn adults, 18 years or older. The dependent variable in this survey was the question of how one would describe their marriage. The answer choices being "very happy," "pretty happy," or "not too happy." The information was divided into four decades. The independent variables in this survey were mainly sex and race, divided into four categories: White husbands, White wives, Black husbands, and Black wives. Other independent variables considered were work status, whether the individual had been divorced before, age of respondent, education, income, etc.

            The findings of this survey are supportive of the idea that race and gender have a significant impact on happiness within a marriage. Whites and males seemed to have higher levels of happiness, with White males being the happiest in marriage. This could potentially come from their position in the family, which is usually one of power. White wives did not have any significant increase in happiness over the years. Black husbands had a slight decrease in happiness over the years. The lowest happiness levels come from Black wives. However, they had a major increase in levels of happiness in the years 1990-2006. The reason for this increase cannot explained without further research. But these results show that the levels of happiness vary among different races and sexes.

            The article, Whom Do Immigrants Marry? Emerging Patterns of Intermarriage and Integration in the United States, by Daniel T. Lichter, Zhenchao Qian, and Dmitry Tumin, examines the methods and findings of a survey regarding intermarriage patterns between immigrants and natives. The data was collected from the decennial censuses. The data is from 2008-2012 in the American Community Survey. There were 86,124 different sex couples, each one containing a husband and wife in one record. Natives are defined as people born in the U.S. and immigrants are defined as foreign-born people. The hypothesis in this study states those with a minority, ethnic background is a barrier of marriage between native-born people and foreign-born. They are categorized into five groups: non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, American Indians, Hispanics, and Asians. Furthermore, the foreign-born respondents were categorized into national origin.

            The findings of this survey prove that the odds are 30 times greater for an endogamous relationship to occur than an exogamous relationship. An endogamous relationship in this case is defined as a relationship where both partners are of the same ethnic background and an exogamous relationship is one where they marry outside of their ethnicity. Percentages of endogamous marriages were highest among native-born Whites. Native-born Asian men had the highest levels of exogamy. Blacks and Hispanics ended up having a variance of levels of exogamy. Native-born Hispanic men are far less likely to be in an endogamous marriage than native-born Black men. Foreign-born Asian men proved to be the most likely to engage in an endogamous marriage. These results show a large variance across different ethnicities and races. They also support that marriage patterns change among the population, based on ethnicity and native origin.

Family Quiz SOC111 Jesse McClurkinJesse McClurkin SOC111 04/26/2018 Marriage And Family Quiz The articles being used for this comparison are “Comparative Patterns of Interracial Marriage: Structural Opportunities, Third-party Factors, and Temporal Change in Immigrant Societies” by Cardell K. Jacobson and Tim B. Heaton and “Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006” by Mamadi Corra et al. These two articles were chosen because I intended to find out whether or not patterns of interracial marriages have a correlation to the rates of which people are finding happiness in their marriages. The “Comparative Patterns…” article used Canada, the United States, Hawaii (a special case because it is not its own nation), New Zealand, South Africa, and Xinjiang China as the participating populations for this study. This was done because those nations have varying ratios of minority to dominant majority (dominant meaning in terms of political rep

Jessica Notarnicola Family quiz

Jessica Notarnicola, 332 words

In the article, Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006, the author's investigate variables that possibly contribute to marital happiness. The authors use quantitative data, using the General Social Survey as a source. They looked at survey questions concerning marital happiness and used the answers as data for their investigation. Their data found that those who showed reported having greater marital happiness were Whites and males, while those who reported low in marital happiness being Blacks and women, the biggest gap in marital happiness being between White males and Black Females. The author's also found that in more recent years, the gap of marital happiness has been closing due to the rise of marital happiness now reported by Black females. Some independent variables the authors used were education, income, children, employment, and if they were divorced. In sum, this research found that white males reported having the highest marital happiness, while black females reported as having the lowest marital happiness.

The second article I chose to read was Explaining Race and Ethnic Variation in Marriage: Directions for Future Research. In this article, the author's investigated possible variables that contribute to variation in marriage among Blacks and Whites, and also gave their thoughts in how further investigation could be improved, or the direction it can be taken. The article focused on comparing marriage variation in Blacks and Whites. They found that Whites were more likely to marry younger, marry into more stable relationships, and less likely to divorce than Blacks. In their research, they found possibly one of the more prevalent causes for differences between Black and White marriages could be due to the fact that in more urban populations, incarceration and unemployment are high for Black males, making them appear less appealing for marriage. In sum, the authors found in their research that there is a significant difference between Black and White marriages, and while there are possible factors that can contribute to this, some of the variables vary across different individuals and families, with which the authors call for more research to be completed before assigning a true factor.

Stephanie Martinez

Stephanie Martinez

328 Words

In the article "Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race," four subgroups were compared: White wives and husbands and Black wives and husbands. They used data collected from the General Social Survey from the years 1973 to 2006. The question they were asked was to rate how happy they were with their marriage, dependent variable. The independent variables included sex, race, work status, children, and religiosity. They discovered that happiness in marriage overall goes down in the 1970s before going back up in the late 1980s. The only group that did not increase were White wives. A conclusion that they reached was that husbands are overall happier than wives, White husbands being the happiest of all and Black Wives being the least. In the 2000s however, happiness for Black wives increased more than it did for Black husbands. They believe it is due to them gaining more quality and obtaining better positions in the economy.

The article "Whom Do Immigrants Marry?..," uses the ACS to analyze the marriage amongst immigrants and natives in the year prior to the survey. They seek to understand what classifies the immigrants who get married. They found that one-sixth of the marriages they gathered involved an immigrant. They concluded that intermarriage is based on things such as the length of time in the U.S., education, and citizenship process. When it comes to Hispanics and Asians, it was proven that an intermarriage was more likely when they had higher education. Also, as a person goes through the naturalization period, an intermarriage becomes more of a possibility. It is assumed that this is because they have a commitment to become American and there are many acquired rights as well. They also found that immigrants aren't really likely to marry a person who was also foreign born, especially true for Hispanics. Additionally, White immigrants are the most likely to get married to a native and Black immigrants are the least likely to do so.

Family Quiz Soc111 MW 1-1:50

Family Quiz

                                                                                                      Eunice Herrera, 597 words

In the article, Recent Changes in the Trends of Teen Birth Rates, Wingo et al. look at the number of births among teens and focuses on age, race, and Hispanic origin. In doing so, researchers are able to advocate for more contraceptive awareness to decrease the number of teen births. Researchers focused on the years 1981 through 2006. To fit the category examined, teens had to be from the ages 10 through 19 and residents of the U.S. This data was collected from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the National Vital Statistics System. Teen ages were separated into three sections: 10-14, 15-17, 18-19. In this research study white, black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, and non-Hispanic black teens were analyzed. Education levels and whether they were married or not were also examined. The number of teen births in every 1000 females was used as the unit of measurement for this research study which were determined with birth certificates. A joinpoint analysis of the data was used to examine yearly tendencies controlled by demographic variables such as race, age, education, and marital status.  Researchers found that in 1990 the amount of births grew to 533, 483 and fell in 2003 to 421, 241. When the results are looked at only by race, the number of births in each category were constant throughout 1981 to 2006. Whites had lower numbers in comparison to blacks and American Indian/Alaska Native. Aside from blacks, there were less than 2 in every 1000 mothers in the 10-14 age category. In this age group birth numbers grew throughout 1981 to 1989 and fell in the years 1994 through 2003. In the ages 15 through 17, numbers grew in 1986 to 1990 and  fell in the years 1994 to 2003. Birth rates increased in 1981 to 1988 and fell in 1991 to 2004 in the ages 18 to 19. For Hispanic teens data revealed lessening numbers in 1992 to 1998 and a rise for those that were 18 and 19 years old. There was a decline in every race group. Teen births fell over 50% in the ages 10 to 14, almost 40% in the ages 15 to 17, and 25% in the ages 18 to 19. 

Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006,  collected data from the General Social Survey through the National Opinion Research Center. All participants had to speak English and had to be 18 and over. Information collected was divided into four sections: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. This study analyzed four groups which are white husbands and wives and black husbands and wives. Gender, age, race, work status, level of education, religiousness, wage were used as independent variables in this study. The number of participants in this study are 24, 455. About forty-one percent of these participants where white husbands and 4.2% were black husbands from a total of 11,606 husbands. Forty-six percent of the participants were white wives and 4.6% were black out of 12,849 wives. This study used mean totals as a unit of measurement of marital happiness. The results show from the four categories, white husbands were at the top for levels of happiness. White wives were the second happiest followed by black husbands and black wives at the bottom. Consequences of sex and race on levels of happiness were looked at. Researchers found that levels of happiness were lower when couples had underage children and higher when income was higher and the couples attended church.

Marcos Iraheta

Marriage has been an institution that has been around for a long period of time and while different cultures have used it for different reasons, happiness within a marriage is a factor that is not usually looked at. This undoubtedly varies by race and for different reasonings, as different couples expect different things from one another.

Mamadi Corra, Shannon Carter, J. Scott Carter and David Knox took a look at this in their study for Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race and discovered some significant findings. They used the General Social Survey and looked at trends from 1976 to 2006 for their research, using English-speaking adults in the United States that were living in noninstitutional facilities. They used data from 23 years' worth of questions, but broke it down into decades, with the dependent variable being the question that was asked: "Taken things all together, how would you describe your marriage." They also broke down the data to look at black and white husbands and wives, to see how they responded across time, using various independent factors like divorce, work status, age, education and income. Among the four groups they looked at, they found that black wives had the least levels of satisfaction in the time span and white husbands to have the most, meaning they were the happiest. Interestingly, they found black wives to have a significant jump in their level of happiness from the 1990's and 2000's, with more research being needed to asses why this happened. As far as white wives, their levels have not increased since the 1970's and black husband rates have decreased slightly since then.

In a study done by Zhenchao Qian and Daniel Lichter titled Social Boundaries and Marital Assimilation: Interpreting Trends in Racial and Ethnic Intermarriage, they looked at interracial marriages and how the trend has changed over the course of the past few decades. They used data from Integrated Public Use Microdata in the 1990 and 2000 census to distinguish between races and used currently married couples ages 20-34 for their study. They also limited marriages to people who migrated to the U.S. before age 20, to further differentiate marriages that may have happened overseas. Furthermore, they took a look at cohabitation patterns for couples in the same age range, excluding homosexual partnerships, to not complicate the study. Their findings saw that it was hard to determine very specific trends because of the re-classification of races in the 2000 census, though intermarriage between blacks and whites went unaffected during this period. African-Americans were actually the least likely to marry Whites, determined by their findings. Hispanics have the highest rates to intermarry with whites at every level of the study, with Asian Americans not too far behind. The only difference was in the level of education, which made Asian American rates higher. The more educated they were, the more they seemed to marry whites. This means that social mobility gave more opportunities to Asians and Hispanics to date and marry whites. American Indians also showed a high level of marital assimilation, according to their studies.

Jesus B. Lopez Family Quiz

Jesus B. Lopez

458 Words

Family Quiz

In the article Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006 by Mamadi Corra, Shannon K Carter, J. Scott Carter, and David Knox, these authors have collected data from the General social survey over the period from 1973 through 2006 to conclude findings of Marital Happiness between four groups, Black Husband and Wives and White Husband and Wives. The question within the survey was "Taken things all together, how would you describe your marriage?"  The answers to choose from were are you very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy. Independent variables included Work Status, whether divorced or not, if there was a child under the age of 18 living in the home, age, education, income, and if they were religious.  The figure one table within the article shows both white husbands and white wives as well as black husbands all had a slight drop in happiness from the 1970s to the 1980s.  Black wives had a small increase within that decade.  Between the 1980s and 1990s white husbands and white wives stayed pretty much the same.  Black husbands and black wives had a decrease in happiness within the 80s through 90s period.  Between the 1990s through 2000s we see that white husbands didn't have much of a change and we see white wives becoming less happy.  On the other hand Black husbands have a small rise in happiness and black wives has a huge significant rise in happiness.  We cannot say what exactly happened to have that rise in happiness but we can only assume attributes like contribution of women in the work force, more financial income, better education, etc.  For the decrease in marital happiness for black men can be situations of unemployment and lack of jobs.

The next article I chose was Marital Assimilation Among Hispanics: Evidence of Declining Cultural and Economic Incorporation? By Daniel T. Lichter, J. Brian Brown, Zhenchao Qian and Julie H. Carmalt.  This article uses data from the 1990 and 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Samples to see how intermarriage patterns between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites effects spatial, cultural, and economic assimilation.  The Method of research sampled 155 metropolitan areas that had 25 married couples with one Hispanic partner.  The research only included young married couples with a Hispanic native, or one Hispanic immigrant who immigrated before the age of 20.  This consists of 53,778 couple in the year 1990 and 76,484 couples in the year 2000.  Hispanic intermarriage was measured by the number of Hispanics married to non-Hispanics whites, dived by the total number of couple that includes at least one Hispanic partner.  The findings concluded that intermarriage rates in the 1990s between Hispanics and non-Hispanics whites had declined.  Over the decades social distance between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites has improved and grown.  This can be because education has improved and people are more willing to except the Hispanic race in their communities.  This article like the first does not give complete answers, but it is an area for more study for greater understanding.  

Madelyn Torrence

Madelyn Torrence, 388 words

Soc 111

Mon. Wed. 1-1:50

Family Quiz

In the article "Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973-2006"  authors Corra, Carter, J. Carter, and Knox look at the different happiness levels within marriages in correspondence with the person's gender and race. In previous research it had been found that marital happiness was on the decline for all races and genders. Previous studies found that there wasn't a difference in genders, with either male or females being more unhappy. It was found that Black wives tended to be less happy than white wives. However, there was a relationship between race and marital happiness. African Americans experienced less marital happiness.

In Corra, Carter, J. Carter, and Knox's research they used the GSS Questionnaire, as a quantitative method. Their dependent variable was marital happiness. Their independent variable was sex, race, divorce, work, children under eighteen in the house, age, education, and religiosity. They broke this down into four groups; Black Wives, Black Husbands, White Wives, and White Husbands. In a general pattern they found that White Wives and Husbands tended to be happier. White husbands tended to be the happiest, then white wives, then black husbands, and then black wives tended to be the least happy. They found that overall Black Wives' happiness was rising, while white husbands tended to always be the happiest but that this happiness was declining. White husbands always being the happiest was attributed to their power, status, and importance but family and societal changes explained the decline in happiness levels.

In the article  "Social Boundaries and Marital Assimilation: Interpreting Trends in Racial and Ethnic Intermarriage" authors Qian and Lichter relate racial or ethnic interracial marriage to distinguishing the racial or ethnic relations within society. Since the 1970's interracial marriages in the United States have increased a lot. Interracial marriage is a sign that an immigrant or immigrant group has assimilated to the majority culture, in this case white culture in the united states.The new assimilation theory is used as a framework to assess the relationship between intermarriage and assimilation The Integrated Public Use Microdata was used as a quantitative method to assess the information.  They found that a growing society of different races has created a growth in interracial marriages with whites. Hispanics and American Indians are most likely to marry whites and African Americans are least likely to marry whites.

Jesus B. Lopez Family Quiz

Jesus B. Lopez

458 Words

Family Quiz

In the article Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006 by Mamadi Corra, Shannon K Carter, J. Scott Carter, and David Knox, these authors have collected data from the General social survey over the period from 1973 through 2006 to conclude findings of Marital Happiness between four groups, Black Husband and Wives and White Husband and Wives. The question within the survey was "Taken things all together, how would you describe your marriage?"  The answers to choose from were are you very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy. Independent variables included Work Status, whether divorced or not, if there was a child under the age of 18 living in the home, age, education, income, and if they were religious.  The figure one table within the article shows both white husbands and white wives as well as black husbands all had a slight drop in happiness from the 1970s to the 1980s.  Black wives had a small increase within that decade.  Between the 1980s and 1990s white husbands and white wives stayed pretty much the same.  Black husbands and black wives had a decrease in happiness within the 80s through 90s period.  Between the 1990s through 2000s we see that white husbands didn't have much of a change and we see white wives becoming less happy.  On the other hand Black husbands have a small rise in happiness and black wives has a huge significant rise in happiness.  We cannot say what exactly happened to have that rise in happiness but we can only assume attributes like contribution of women in the work force, more financial income, better education, etc.  For the decrease in marital happiness for black men can be situations of unemployment and lack of jobs.

The next article I chose was Marital Assimilation Among Hispanics: Evidence of Declining Cultural and Economic Incorporation? By Daniel T. Lichter, J. Brian Brown, Zhenchao Qian and Julie H. Carmalt.  This article uses data from the 1990 and 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Samples to see how intermarriage patterns between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites effects spatial, cultural, and economic assimilation.  The Method of research sampled 155 metropolitan areas that had 25 married couples with one Hispanic partner.  The research only included young married couples with a Hispanic native, or one Hispanic immigrant who immigrated before the age of 20.  This consists of 53,778 couple in the year 1990 and 76,484 couples in the year 2000.  Hispanic intermarriage was measured by the number of Hispanics married to non-Hispanics whites, dived by the total number of couple that includes at least one Hispanic partner.  The findings concluded that intermarriage rates in the 1990s between Hispanics and non-Hispanics whites had declined.  Over the decades social distance between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites has improved and grown.  This can be because education has improved and people are more willing to except the Hispanic race in their communities.  This article like the first does not give complete answers, but it is an area for more study for greater understanding.  

Alonzo Cason 563 Marriage and Family

Alonzo Cason

563 words

 

 

            This week's topic focused on the topic of marriage and the family in terms of social issues. This topic has always been one that's affected me the most personally of all the issues we've discussed in this semester's course. Not to cause any disparities, the topic of marriage and families has always been a negative one to me due in part of my personal history with it. So, this week was a tough for me to keep my personal views and opinions away from influencing any prejudices I have. As with all the weekly quizzes we selected 2 articles one being required the other being one of our own choosing, the required article was "Trends in Martial Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006" by Mamadi Corra, Shannon K. Carter, J. Scott etc.  The article in question reported and discussed the various rates of marital happiness husbands and wives have filtered by their races and genders. The article discovered that Whites husband had the highest rate of happiness with black wives having the lowest. Yet, they noticed a slow decline of the gap between the levels of happiness mostly in the case of black wives having the most significant raise in happiness levels. The article discussed various factors and briefly talked about the reasonings behind the rates/levels they found. With most of my quizzes I tend to include something from Prof. Kubal's lecture on the topic that helped me better understand the weekly topic. However, for this week it wasn't something that Kubal had mentioned or touched but rather something a classmate of my whispered/ responded to Kubal when asked why the increase in happiness. The student responded by saying the social atmosphere towards black women was one of a better in sight due to media influence. Such as Oprah, black actresses, and musician become household names could played a significant key role. The next article I read was one titled "Black Girl Happiness is Revolutionary" by Dr. Kristian H. In the article she discussed the average experiences black women face in their lives and the social expectations that are placed on them from having to be strong and resilient and often times having to be a single parent. The article continued this route and highlighted the struggles so many people have in terms of martial happiness and factors that influence a happy marriage and family. My family may look like a nice stable on however, my biological dad walked out on my mom while she was pregnant with me. She had to struggle to not only support herself but also a unborn child by herself yet she was lucky enough to find a man that not only stood by her side but wanted to be father figure for a child with no father. This week's topic as I stated earlier was one that truly hit home for me. But it's one just as the other topics we've discussed is one that's often times over looked and passed over as not important when in reality what's most important to us is our families. We always talk about the importance of it and yet we don't take the necessary actions to ensure the happiness and its one that deserves to be discussed cause nothing hurts more than walking into a once warm happy house to find a cold and hollow relic in it's place.

Family Quiz

Marriage Quiz

Richard James

 

Marriage Quiz

 

Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973-2006

 

            The method that was used in this article was the General Social Surveys from the years 1973-2006 (1379).

            The findings revealed that white husbands and white wives' marital happiness remains positive and significant throughout all four decades (1394). White husbands had higher levels of marital happiness than white wives, black husbands, and black wives (1391). White wives had higher levels of marital happiness than both black husbands and wives (1391).

            The findings revealed that black husbands' marital happiness was both positive and significant from the 1970s and 1980s. Black husbands marital happiness was positive, but not statistically significant in the 1990s and 2000s. The research indicated that the marital happiness of black husbands and wives had converged (1394). Black husband reported having higher levels of marital happiness than black wives (1391).

            The study also revealed that there isn't a relationship between marital happiness and education level, divorce status, religious denomination, and for most of the age categories (1394).

 

Are Same-Sex and Single Adoptive Parents More Likely to Adopt Transracially? A National Analysis of Race, Family Structure, and the Adoption Marketplace.

 

            The method that was used in this article was the 2000 United States Census (455).

            The results from Table 1 indicate that 60% of children adopted are white and 72% of adoptive parents are white (459). There are more Asian and Hispanic kids than Asian and Hispanic parents (459). 15% of adoptive parents adopt transracially, or outside of their race (459). 79% of adopted children live in households with married adoptive parents (459). 5% of the adoptive parents are raised in a non-married and single parent household (459). A small, but unknown percentage of kids live in same-sex households (459).

            The results from Table 2 focused more on adoption within the same racial or ethnic backgrounds and transracial adoption being more prominent of white families. 95% of black adoptive parents adopt a black child (459). 87% of Hispanic and Asian adoptive parents adopt a child of the same race (459). Transracial is more prominent amongst white adoptive parents with a rating of 18% White adoptive parents who do transracial adoption are more likely to adopt a Hispanic or Asian child by 6%. White adoptive parents who adopt a black child with a 2% rating (460).

            The results from Table 3 focused more on transracial adoption of children by white, same-sex couples and white single parents. 6% of white gay and lesbian parents adopt a black child (462). 5% of white single parents adopt a black child (462).

family quiz

Vanessa Rodriguez Words 391

            In the article, Trends in Martial happiness by gender and race, 1973 to 2006 by Corra et al, is a study in where they take a look where certain races being to be happy. This study was restricted to only two races, which were whites and blacks. Looking into white husbands and white wives, and as will black husband and wives.  The study showed that throughout the years it showed that black's happiness in marriage has increased over time while white husband had had a decrease in their happiness.  The data for this survey came from the General social survey in the years 1973 to 2006.  The participants were randomly picked for this survey.  In their finding, they were able to find that couples who have children who are 18 under are less likely to be happy than those who did not have children living with them. As well for the black wife, it showed that their happiness in marriages has increased. Since now there are more diverse marriages black women are more likely to get married to a white man. This concludes that it was very hard for them to measure the levels of happiness since their study was restricted. They only focus on two races groups and social positions they stand in our society. They will continue to do the study and they will be comparing it to other race groups.

    In the article, Explaining Race and Ethnic Variation in Marriage: Directions for Future Research by Raley. In this study, they do a research on racial and ethnic differentials in marriage and how that can create inequality.  They had different factors in how they were able to check each group. They did illustrate depending what job and income a certain race had, could play a factor in a happy marriage. Blacks had a higher disadvantage in having a good income or even having a happy marriage. There is a lot of discrimination in the workforce.  It also resulted in them having the highest divorce rate than any other race.  They also showed as long as a relationship has a stable finance it helps, by having a happy marriage.  This concludes that for a relationship to be stable and have a great benefit they must have a good economic status, they must be emotional and physical committed to their partner.

Silvia Nieto

In the article Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, the authors talk about the amount of divorces and a decline in marriage rates. They mention how marital happiness varies in quality depending on the gender and race of individuals. They look into the impact of both gender and race on how marital happiness is and changes overtime. In order to asses this, they used data from a 1973-2006 General Social Survey where they were able to get a random drawn nationally representative sample of adults that spoke English. These individuals were all at the age of 18 and older and lived in non institutional places within the United States. They were asked questions such as how would they describe their marriage and given the following choices; very happy, pretty happy, or not to happy. In their findings, they were able to see that Whites as well as husbands disclose that they have a higher marital happiness as compared to wives and Blacks. Within Black and White husbands and wives, we were able to see that Black wives detailed the lowest level of marital happiness as where White husbands had the highest. Even though we see that White husbands have the highest marital happiness, all throughout the years of 1970 to 2000, there has been a slight decline amongst all four groups. What was most remarkable from the changes throughout the years were that Black wives had a significant rise in marital happiness as compared to the other groups. As for white wives, marital happiness has not improved during the time period studied.

In the article Whom Do Immigrants Marry? Emerging Patterns of Intermarriage and Integration in the United States, the authors study intermarriages amongst immigrants in the United States. They are trying to find out if immigrants marry natives and if this is the case, they further their investigation and try to discover if they marry white natives, coethnic natives or other natives. In order to get their results, they use data from an American Community Survey (ACS) from the years 2008 through 2012 which helps them take demographic stock of patterns of contemporary intermarriages. They take down the marriages among foreign born individuals and native population over the period of 2008 and 2012. They also study the variation the intermarriage with foreigners and natives between panethnic groupings. They ask people both natives and foreign born if they marry each other rather than whites or the minority population. Another thing they do is evaluate if differences in foreign born intermarriage population is based on ethnicity, race, national origin, preference, etc. When coming down with the results, it was indicated that about 1 in 6 marriages that had formed in the year previous included an immigrant. It was also seen that more than half of the marriages involved a partner that was native. Implications are that assimilations in marriages are important but are changing part of the social integration and incorporation. White immigrants are most likely to marry natives, especially whites compared to black immigrants. Black immigrants are less likely than other immigrant groups to step into ethnic and racial lines or marry black natives. Also, intermarriage was highly linked to social integration such as education, the amount of time in the country, etc.

Corra, M., Carter, S. K., Carter, J. S., & Knox, D. (2009). Trends in marital happiness by gender and race, 1973 to 2006. Journal of Family Issues,30(10), 1379-1404.

Lichter, D., Qian, Z., & Tumin, D. (2015). Whom Do Immigrants Marry? Emerging Patterns of Intermarriage and Integration in the United States. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 662, 57.

Adriana Chavez

Adriana Chavez

Word Count:568

Family Quiz

 

The article, Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973-2006 researchers are hoping to compare the trends of marital happiness that have been seen among both White genders and both Black genders from 1973 to 2006. To measure this, data form the GSS that was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center which contains a sample of randomized individuals over the legal age who speak English. This resulted in 24,455 married individuals who were predominately white spouses describing their marriage. They studied variables like marital happiness of those in the U.S on an ordinal scale with unhappiness defined with the choice of not to happy and happiness at its peak with, very happy. All this while taking into account the gender and race that chose the option. The independent variables considered were work status, marital status, work-employment status of both genders, age, education, income, and religiosity, as well as the presence of children in their lives to see if this had any effect on how happy black and white spouses were. After all variables were accounted for, the study measured the data with two different analysis scales; multivariate and trend. The multivariate analysis found that White spouses are the happiest with White husbands being the happiest, Black husbands being happy but not happier than white wives and Black wives being the most unhappy. This may be due to the fact that the analysis found that those with a not so affluent work status and younger children are low on the happiness scale while those who have highly educated spouses, higher income and those who attended religious ceremonies more often were happier. The trend analysis found that throughout the years, white husbands and white wives have been consistent in their happiness with only a slight decrease in happiness for White wives. On the other hand, Black husbands have been significantly happier than black wives throughout the years but the gap is closing between them because there has been a slight increase in the happiness of Black wives.

 

The article, Recent Changes in the Trends of Teen Birth Rates, 1981-2006 researchers want to know which new demographics of teen birth rates trends have occurred. The reason they want to study this is because the U.S is the country that has the highest rate of teen pregnancy amongst developed countries. Which is part due to lack of sexual education and other factors that researchers want to be aware of to reduce teen pregnancy even further. The method to measure if teen pregnancy is consistent, has increased or decreased; birth certificates that were under the public domain of the National Vital Statistics System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were reviewed. On top of this the study considered teen pregnancy among races; whites, blacks Asians/Pacific Islanders, Natives, and people of Hispanic origin since it's not considered a race. The study considered live births by 1,000 females which was then converted into annual percentage changes to account for the timeframes that the females gave birth in. The findings showed that there has been an increase in teen pregnancy among all females of Hispanic origins under 18 to 18-19 increased but the education level of all females increased to the completion of 12^th grade. On the opposite side, teen pregnancies for Asian/Pacific Islander teens has decreased. Also, the percentages of teen females decreased from 1981 to 2006. Overall, teen pregnancy has been decreasing and teen pregnancies has shifted toward older teens whereas before younger teens were giving birth more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Corra, M., Carter, S. K., Carter, J. S., & Knox, D. (2009). Trends in marital happiness by gender and race, 1973 to 2006. Journal of Family Issues,30(10), 1379-1404.

 

Wingo, Smith, Tevendale, & Ferré. (2011). Recent Changes in the Trends of Teen Birth Rates, 1981–2006. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48(3), 281-288.

Karina Cardona Word Count: 595

Explaining Race and Ethnic Variation in Marriage: Directions for Future Research

Raley, R Kelly; Sweeney, Megan M. Race and Social Problems; New York Vol. 1, Iss. 3,  (Sep 2009): 132-142.

There are other factors that help represent marriage like commitment, sexual fidelity, and trust. A relationship should not be based off economically. Blacks tend to marry at a younger age compared to whites. Surprisingly, white births happen more often in marriage than that of blacks. Mexicans marry earlier than whites, and less likely to disrupt. Yet blacks are more likely to divorce than whites. The first explanation to why there are differences in marriage between Blacks and whites is the lack of available men to marry. The number of incarceration and unemployment make male partners unavailable. The second explanation is if a cultural or attitude problem shapes the behaviors between families. Black families are different focusing on family relationships and less on marriage.  Economic is one feature of the expectations in marriage. Being economically stable and cooperative between partners, as well as home productions and caring for the children. The second feature is interpersonal nature. Commitment and trust between partner is necessary to make a marriage stronger. The third is social nature. The relationship between the partner and other people in social institutions. During marriage wealth comes to play very often. Many want to be stable before they marry to have enough incase a divorce is mentioned in the relationship. People want to be prepared for the what if. They mention how marriage rates for black men is less due to lower earning and no secure employment.

Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006: Mamadi Corra, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, Shannon K. Carter, J. Scott Carter: University of Central Florida, Orlando David Knox  East Carolina University, Greenville, NC

Marriages have changed over time. Due to differences in how each one of the partner puts effort to help with the housework, marital happiness will increase. Many husbands have reported to be happier in marriage than wives are. This is due to how they are more egalitarian. On the other hand women with egalitarian attitudes show lower levels of happiness and are more likely to end the marriage with a divorce.  Causing an increase of happiness in the marriage. With the increase in Black women employment and unemployment and underemployment in Black men, women have to work twice as hard. Women are brought up to be housewives, but many of them receive careers and are stuck with the second shift. This includes all the house work and child care, after they are home from work. Majority of these women claim to be unhappy due to the lack of help from their husbands. Also given they are handed the third shift as well, which includes disproportionate amount of housework and repairing emotional damage caused by decreases in family time. All the extra work that is done by women causes them to see the marriage as useless, when they do it all. Black women are more likely to leave a marriage. Research also shows, the less children a couple has the happier they are, the more children the less happier the married couple is.

Respondents were given the question whether "Taken things all together, how would you describe your marriage." During four decades they only included married individuals. This data also is based on whether or not respondents are divorced, have children under 18, spousal education, and family income. Religion was also used as a dummy variable, including service attendance to measure their religiosity.

Jessica Gutierrez

Corra, M., Carter, S. K., Carter, J. S., & Knox, D. (2009). Trends in marital happiness by gender and race, 1973 to 2006. Journal of Family Issues,30(10), 1379-1404.

The data was gathered from the general social survey. It was done on adults from the ages of 18 years and older living in noninstitutional settings in the United States. The dependent variable is "Taken things all together, how would you describe your marriage." The options to answer the question are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy. They conducted the study based off of the years of 1973-2006. They formulated a linear regression model. The independent variables were sex and race, work status of the respondent, whether the respondent is divorced or not, if there was a child living with them under the age of 18, respondents' and spousal employment status, age, education, income, and religiosity. They controlled for the respondents and spouses education and income. All of these factors contribute to families in the United States when dealing with their social and economic status. Under the multivariate analysis results, they discovered that white husbands have a higher level of marital happiness compared to black wives, who had the lowest level of marital status. White wives have a greater level of marital happiness compared to both black husbands and wives.

Qian, Z., & Lichter, D. T. (2007). Social boundaries and marital assimilation: Interpreting trends in racial and ethnic intermarriage. American Sociological Review, 72(1), 68-94.

The data for this study was gathered from the Integrated Public Use Microdata 5 percent of the samples are from the years 1990 and 2000 which are from the census. The use the races white, African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanics. Hispanics are anyone who identifies themselves as being Hispanic, Spanish or Latino origin. The goal is to look at the recent trends in intermarriages within the United States. The sample is limited to the foreign-born people who migrated to the United States before the age of 20. Log-linear models were used in the study. Under figure 1 in the study, they discovered that intermarriage was lower among the whites but it was higher for American Indians. Intermarriage is higher for Hispanics compared to African Americans. They proved that it was four times greater for Hispanic women in comparison to African American women in the year 2000. White and Black immigrants have a high level of intermarriage. They concluded that changed made recently in racial classification, as well as for demographic shifts in immigration, cohabitation, and education, have a relationship with the changing patterns of intermarriage in the 1990's.

Josie Renfnorth Marital Racial quiz

Josephine Renforth

Soc 111

Words:  557

 

In the article "Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006"  by Mamadi Corra East Carolina University, Greenville, NC Shannon K. Carter J. and Scott Carter, the marital satiations between the races was examined for trends  using the GSS from 1973 to 2006.    The GSS askes in it's surveys by GSS, "Sometimes as a general question."   It is also measured "Sometimes by capturing other aspects of their marital relationship, such as the amount of love and affection they receive, sexual relationship…"      Prior studies done in marital happiness by gender hypothesized women's, especially white women, becuae black women have historically always had to work, that white women's dissatisfaction was related to domesticity and boredom from being a housewife. However, the 1960s and  70's there was a dramatic increase of women entering the workforce, the research found increased dissatisfaction in marital happiness.. For women, egalitarian distribuptuion increases marital happiness, while some men, are less happy.  Additional literature in this study acknowledges the decrease in men's wages and the phenomenon of being unemployed and under employed, having to work two jobs, can affect an individuals marital happiness.

This study's research questions:

The results:  overall while males historically and presently report greater marital satisfaction.  The respondents also reported employment status and children under the age of eighteen to have less marital satisfaction.  The variable for age showed a trend or more marital happiness in the  18 – 24 and  25 plus ranges, with 36-64 reporing lowest marital happiness.  Race and gender, revealed that white males have been the most satisfied over the entire study.  Black men  and women's happiness "converged" as black women have beome happier in their marriages. White women  There was a change in marital happiness for black wives from 1990 to 200's.

 

In the article: "A PATH TOWARD INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE: Women's First Partners and Husbands across Racial Lines" Rosalind Berkowitz King  and  Jenifer L. Bratter study if the race of a women's first sexual partner is a predictor for the race of whom they entually marry.   Does a liberal upbringing led to marrying outside color lines?  In exploring frist sexual partner and first husband, researchers seek to answer the questions: "does a women's background influence her chose or race and ethnicity for first sexual partners and husbands?"  "Is there continunity in selfecting a first partner and a first husband?" and "Does this vary between ethnic and racial groups?"

Methods:  survey by the National Health of Family Growth from 1995 with 10,847.  Questions include if the first suxal experience was consensual, other detailed questions, including those about their husbancs.  The women were ages 15 to 44.  A major component to t study was the race and ethnicity of the wmen.

Findings:  The results found that Non-Hispanic Asiansnon-hispanic Asians  (NHA),non-hispanic whites   (HW) and (HAI)  women have higher odds of intimate interacial experiences compared to (NHW) this did not differ fornon-hispanic blacks  (NHB) , despite the sample size being much smaller then (NHW).   The results found that women wo cross color lineswith first intimate sexual relationships are more likely to marry interracially. Blacks face more color barriers with BW. Therefore there showed low racial intersection in intimate relationships. Meanwhile, Asians and Hispanics, who do not face the same racial separation from whites, do have a greter propensity of interacal sexual partern/marriage relations with whites.

Family Quiz

Angelica Ortega (580 words)

            In the first article I would be analyzing is "Pregnancy and Dropout: Effects of Family, Neighborhood, and High School Characteristics on Girls' Fertility and Dropout Status" which was written by Nathan Berg and Teresa D. Nelson. The article basically is saying that Hispanic women have a higher chance of getting pregnant in high school and end up dropping out. It wasn't really a surprising statistic but what made it so interesting was that back then they'd force teenager girls to drop out of school if they got pregnant. Of course, now through polices and all that it has changed so they encourage all girls to stay in school regardless if the get pregnant or not. 

            Measuring pregnancy you'd have gather data for years, and that's exactly a school in Texas did. They gather data for about 6 years, they had a cohort of girls and they'd measure all their test scores, attendance, how many did make it all the way to graduation, and if there were all drop outs. High school only lasts four years but some do take maybe one or 2 years after to complete high school, that is why the data runs up to 6 years total. In the end though what was discovered was the higher the age the higher the chances are of pregnancy. However with this being older girls did have an influence over the younger girls so there was an increase with their pregnancies too. It mostly depended on the neighborhoods, age, and ethnic family households that predicted the results in this experiment.

            Moving on to the next article that I wanted to analyze it was "The illegitimate and the illegal in the South African City: The effects of apartheid on births out of wedlock" written by Sandra Burman and Patricia Van der Spuy. It is pretty much about places in South Africa that had the most disadvantages and how they dealt with births out of wedlock. Now of course this study had to be record for a long time because of the history colored people had and so much had changed since the past 185 years. Their data however runs back up to about 45 years. This is what helped measure correctly since it was after marriage and other things became allowed to the people of color.

It was illegal to have children out of wedlock because of the apartheid era. It was legislation that strictly tried to reconstruct South Africa by using segregation. Colored people were made to live in rural areas. It was outlawed also to have sexual intercourse with those who were classified as "white". The whole point of it was to decrease the number of law broken since it was so common that people who weren't married was having lots of children. It wasn't so clear how they were going to go about making people wait until they got married to have children but there would be some form of consequence.

As both articles would say, depending on the time era and who specifically pregnancy rates would very much differ. In the first article the type of pregnancies that they were focusing on were teen pregnancies and the rates of being a high school dropout. The second article they target more women who had children out of wedlock, more specifically colored women. By the the era you could get the idea that these women were much older therefore, the rates were probably much lower.

family quiz

Astyn Lopez, 345 words

Marriage and Family

"Trends in Marital Happiness by Race and Gender, 1973-2006" By: Mamadi Corra, Shannon K. Carter, J. Scott Carter, and David Knox

The statistics from this study were taken from the General Social Survey, between the years of 1973-2006. The question used in order to measure the statistical significance of marital happiness in relation to gender and race was "Taken things all together, how would you describe your marriage" (Pg. 1388). Answers varied from 'very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy'. This question was the dependent variable. The main method was to take various answers throughout the different time periods (Pg. 1388). This analysis included only one answer from one spouse per household. The independent variables were that of race and gender. In our findings it is found that White husbands are happier than their white wives when being compared to both Black husbands and wives (Pg. 1392). The highest levels of marital happiness were reported by White husbands and the lowest levels were reported by Black wives (Pg. 1392). Although, there is further studies needed when it comes to finding the exact reason as to why marital happiness is susceptible to change over time (Pg. 1397).

 

"The Independence of Young Adults and the Rise of Interracial and Same-sex Unions."  By: Michael J. Rosenfeld and Byung-Soo Kim

The method used for collecting this data was from the U.S. census. Using this method helped collect the data in seeing just how many couples were of interracial marriages and or involved in same sex unions. Starting in the 2000 census is when it was clear to see the difference between heterosexual and homosexual marriages, because by this time is when some states started to allow licenses to same sex couples to legally wed (Pg. 544 Rosenfeld and Kim). It was found in the end, overall interracial marriage was on the rise all the way from 1940 to 2000 (Pg. 546 Rosenfeld and Kim). It was also observed in the findings that from 1990-2000 same sex marriage also increased (Pg. 552 Rosenfeld and Kim). In conclusion, it can be seen that both the rise of interracial and same sex marriage increased from 1940-2000, but same sex marriage was not impacted until 1990-2000. Young adults were steering away from the norm and becoming what this article considers to be independent.

Alexia. Jimenez-Carrillo Family Quiz

Alexia Jimenez-Carrillo

Word count: 525

In the article, Trends in Marital Happiness by Gender and Race, 1973 to 2006, the dependent variable is how happy are you married. The questions that were asked were all revolving around how happy the individual was with their marriage. The two races that were surveyed were Blacks and whites. They also tracked their gender, work, marital status, education, age, income, and religion. They also asked if they had any children under the age of 18 and used it for their data, the highest scores were given to people who answered greater happiness, and the least scores were the people who were the least happy. This study focuses on the years 1973-2006 data of the GSS.

            It was found that everyone but white wives were happier than before. They were getting happier as time progressed. There was a slighjkmt decrease in the years 70-90's, but everyone went back up right after that except white wives. White husbands are happier than Black wives and husbands. Black wives are slightly higher than black husbands. It was found that husbands tend to be happier than wives. The gap between husbands and wife's happiness is closing. This does not mean that it is closing because husbands are less happy, but because black wives are just getting happier. It was not clearly shown the reason for the happiness in black wives. There needs to be further research to explain why these changes have happened. So far, the best guess is that over the years, marriages have evolved and changed which has made more people happy except for white wives. White men are happier because of the power that they still have.

In the article, Social Boundaries and Marital Assimilation: Interpreting Trends in Racial and Ethnic Intermarriage, the goal was to conduct a survey to figure out if there were changes or new ideas about intermarriage sampling different races. The way that this study was conducted was from IPUMS data and the Census data from 1990 to 2000. This study was done with multi races such as: Hispanics, whites, African Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians. It wasn't until the year 2000 that people were allowed to claim more than just one race.  They try to pin point how those same individuals reported themselves as in 1990 to try to keep the data as accurate as possible. The census no longer asks about when the individual first got married. It only includes currently married couple, therefore that could tamper with the actual findings. The way that this study controls this is by only including young couple of ages 20-34 to avoid the older couple who might have already experienced divorce. Only opposite sex marriages are included in this survey.

It was found that intermarriage was the lowest or least likely to happen with whites, and the highest with American Indians. White men and women were the least likely to intermarry, then it was African American men and women, the next group would be Hispanic men and women, then Asian American men and women, and the most likely to intermarry were American Indian men and women in both 1990 and 2000. All races had more intermarriages in the year 2000 than in 1990. As the years go by, intermarriage is more common among all races.