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.

 

Bounmy Xiong

Bounmy Xiong, 507 words

For the first article, the author starts off talking about how race and gender has an impact on martial happiness. At the beginning of the article, it talks about how whites tend to have more martial happiness compare to blacks. Black wives reported to have the lowest martial happiness. Another report was that younger married couples tend to have more martial conflicts, problems and less martial interaction than older married couples. Looking back at 1990, it was the time period where martial happiness decreased. From 1980-2000, there was no change in martial happiness, but a decline in martial interaction and there was an assumption that there may be a social change as well. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a positive and negative factor that showed an effect on martial happiness. Even though there can be a positive or negative effect on martial happiness, the interaction between race and gender can shape how an individual experience and interpret an individual social life. At a societal level, there was an increase for divorce, single parent, decrease in marriage and getting remarried again. It also has an effect on an individual physical and mental well-being and it can be a positive or negative relationship as they grow up. The dependent variable is a question asking how an individual would describe their marriage as either being happy or not happy. The independent variable is the social location of the four different race groups and whether they are employed or not. In conclusion, white husband tends to have the highest levels of martial happiness whereas black wives tend to have the lowest levels of martial happiness.

For the following article, it talks about the social boundaries for intermarriage between different race and ethnics. Since the 1970s, intermarriage has increased in the United States. In 2000, interracial marriage was only 6% compared to married couples who married their own race. Looking at the different race and ethnicity, Hispanics and Asians American tend to decline in intermarriage in 1990. There is some assumption that there was a social distance between the different race groups and what it meant was that the social boundary was between the majority and minority group. The data collected is from the Integrated Public Use Microdata (IPUMS). There are five samples that were collected from the 1990 and 2000 census. Multiracial individuals report that they are more than two or more of a minority race. It also states that interracial marriages are more likely to be like older marriages compare to younger marriages. In conclusion, the first table shows that there was a huge difference between other races when it comes to interracial marriage. Another thing is that different group size doesn't account for the low percentages for intermarriage than African Americans compare to Hispanics. Sometimes interracial marriage can occur due to demographic shifts and it is still unclear whether interracial marriage was a measurement for time changes. Another report was that biracial individuals are more likely to marry another racial group compare to a single race individual.   

Bounmy Xiong 

Khou Yang,Soc 111 MW 1PM

 Khou Yang, 600 words

In the first article, it starts talking about how the impact of race and gender plays a role in martial happiness. In the article, it shows that whites report to have martial happiness compared to blacks. When it comes to reporting martial happiness between the two, black wives tend to have a low martial happiness where whites tend to have a high martial happiness. Another report about martial happiness is that younger couples tend to have more martial conflicts and have less martial interaction compare to older couples. During the 1980s, martial happiness started to decrease. From 1980-2000, there was a positive and negative factor that played a role in martial happiness. It was determined by the interaction between an individuals experience and how they interpret their social lives depending on their race and gender. At a social level, there was an increase for divorce, single parents, and a decrease in marriage or getting remarried. It had an effect on an individual physical and mental well-being and as they grew up it can either have a positive and negative relationship as they grow up. The dependent variable in the article the question asking how an individual would describe their marriage. To find whether martial happiness increase or decrease, they had to look at different time periods. The data is from the General Social Survey from 1972 to 2006. The data was a longitudinal time series since they were looking at different time intervals. Independent variable was that it asked whether they work or not. In conclusion, white husband tends to have high level of martial happiness compare to black wives who have less level of martial happiness.

In the second article, it talks about racial intermarriage and how it has changed throughout the years. Since the 1970s, intermarriage has increased in the U.S. In 2000, intermarriage was only at 6% compared to people who married their own race. As other race started getting married to one another mixed race children were questioned about the conceptions of race and how that trend is starting to improve the relationships between racial groups and plays a role in cultural distinctions as well. In the article, Hispanics and Asians tend to decline intermarriage in the 1990s and some assumed that there was a social distance between the social boundary within a majority and minority group.  As intermarriage started happening more, it started to increase rapidly and started to be a concern for the immigration population. As it started to be a mix between the two race, it started to shift and eventually was respected and started to increase diversity in America. The data is from Intergrated Public Use (IPUMS). There are five samples from 1990 and 2000 census. It showed that interracial marriage report that they are mort than one or more minority race. The results are that in the first table showed that there was a difference between the other races when it came to interracial marriage. Not only does different group size accounts, but the low percentage in intermarriage was blacks compared to Hispanics.

After reading the two articles, both of the articles talked about marriage and whether it has changed throughout the years and it has been changing up to now. Interracial marriage is seen around today and there are people that we know who were either not happy in their marriage and were either divorce or remarried. Both of the articles talked about how it has to be within a certain race group to determine how their marriage would last depending on whether they got married at a young age.

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Khou Yang