Delayed Entry into First Marriage: Further Evidence on the Becker-Landes-Michael Hypothesis

Evelyn Lehrer () and Yu Chen ()
Additional contact information
Yu Chen: University of Illinois at Chicago

No 6729, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In their pioneering research, Becker, Landes and Michael (1977) found that beyond age 30 there is a positive relationship between women's age at first marriage and marital instability. They interpreted this finding as a "poor-match" effect emerging as the biological clock begins to tick. In analyses of the 2006-2010 National Surveys of Family Growth (NSFG), we find evidence of the existence of this effect: women who delay marriage disproportionately make unconventional matches, which are generally associated with high marital instability (N = 3,184). We also find, however, that their unions are very solid. We develop and test competing hypotheses that can account for these patterns. In addition, noting that women's delayed transition to first marriage has been accompanied by higher proportions of women entering marriage with 16 years of schooling or more, we examine changes across the last three NSFG cycles in the education - marital instability association.

Keywords: marital instability; marital stability; divorce; marriage; marriage dissolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2012-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Demographic Research, 2013, 29 (20), 521-542

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6729.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6729

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().