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.