Living arrangements after divorce: cohabitation versus remarriage

"The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of all [U.S.] couple households in which one or both partners were previously married. In this examination, we will consider not only households maintained by married couples...; we will also consider households formed by cohabiting couples. In addition, we will examine the living arrangements of children in these households, with particular attention to whether children are from the current union or a previous union."

Some recent demographic developments in Ireland

High emigration and a familial, rural culture, isolationist and Roman Catholic in inspiration and practice, were central features of the Irish social landscape between the Famine and the Fifties. Since the 1960s, however, a social revolution has occurred. Irish marriage and fertility patterns have changed rapidly. The hegemonic rural discourse has all but disappeared and the influence of fundamentalist Catholic thinking on Irish society has weakened gready. Irish emigration continues, but the options chosen are more varied, and many return. Both return and first-time immigrants are beginning to have an impact, modest as yet, on Irish society. Irish demography is no longer as exceptional in European or world terms as it once was. It is the timing and rapidity of the Irish demographic transition, rather than its content, which is remarkable.

Patterns of Catholic-Protestant intermarriage in Northern Ireland

"Some of the social factors governing the incidence of religious intermarriage in Northern Ireland are reviewed before setting out data from a special tabulation of the 1971 census of Northern Ireland. According to the tabulation only some 2% of married couples enumerated declared themselves to be in Catholic-Protestant marriages....The tabulation suggests that the likelihood of marriage across the Catholic-Protestant divide is no greater for manual workers than for nonmanual workers when controls are introduced for relative group size.... There are indications that the incidence of Catholic-Protestant marriage was rising in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s."

English historical demography and the nuptiality conundrum: new perspectives

"In the last decade, nuptiality has been placed at the centre of the English demographic regime in the long eighteenth-century. Proto-industrial areas in particular are increasingly seen to have experienced substantial decline in the female age at first marriage during this period, helping to fuel substantial population growth. This article uses family reconstitution and other data to question the uniformity of this experience and to suggest new avenues of interpretation rather than simply observation. For Calverley in West Yorkshire, England, female marriage ages remained stable throughout the proto-industrialisation process. More significantly, the distribution of marriage ages around the mean was much narrower than similar measures elsewhere. The article suggests that kinship, a deep sentimental and practical attachment to land, and an early retirement system lay behind this experience."

Estimation of mean age at first marriage: use of a simple mathematical model

"The present paper is an attempt to introduce a simple mathematical model to describe the age pattern of proportion never married women. The underlying model was found to give fairly close fit to an observed set of data of some 17 WFS [World Fertility Survey] countries. A mathematical formulation was then suggested in terms of the parameters in the model to estimate the mean age at first marriage. The mean ages obtained under the approach agreed quite closely with those obtained by Hajnal's method. The agreement between the estimates of ever married proportions obtained by the suggested model and...Coale's nuptiality model appeared also to be satisfactory."

The form of marriage in Europe: civil ceremony, religious ceremony. Survey and trends

The author examines trends in the distribution of civil and religious marriage ceremonies in Europe over time. Information is provided on marriages among different religious groups in Central, Southern, and Northern Europe. "In many countries the proportion of religious marriages is declining, in others it shows little change, while in others it is on the increase.... In some countries their decline precedes that in the total number of marriages, in others it follows it, while in others the two movements coincide. Hypotheses have been advanced to explain these different developments, based on the socio-political and institutional contexts. These contexts can now usefully be reviewed, not in order to make forecasts, but to indicate the course of possible future developments."

[Consanguineous marriage in Turkey and its effects on infant mortality]

The authors examine the effects of consanguineous marriage on infant mortality in Turkey. An attempt is made to distinguish the influence of consanguineous marriage from that of selected regional and socioeconomic factors. It is found that "the differences of the average infant mortality rates between consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages are parallel to the development differences between the regions as well as the conditions of the house which are thought to signify the socioeconomic differences. Although the differences in averages are insignificant statistically, this trend [indicates] that consanguineous marriages [affect] infant mortality." Data are from the 1983 Turkish Fertility, Contraceptive Prevalence and Family Health Status Survey. (SUMMARY IN ENG)

The effect of war on marriage, divorce and birth rates

The impact of war on marriage, divorce, and birth rates in the United States from 1933 to 1986 is explored. The author concludes that "the involvement of the nation in military activities was accompanied by a decrease in marriage and birth rates but not by any change in divorce rates. Mobilization of the armed forces and demobilization had no discernible impact on divorce, marriage or birth rates."

Interethnic marriage: identifying the second generation in Australia

"Studies in Australia show that an increasing proportion of the population have ancestors from more than one country. Evidence regarding differences in the marriage patterns of first and second generation migrants has been restricted in scope as published marriage registration data includes only birthplace of partners. Marriage registration records include information about the birthplace of parents of partners, but is available only through specially produced tabulations. Changes in the census for 1986 and 1991 make it possible to identify the second generation in households, and this article examines the use of census data as an alternative to marriage registration records in tracing changes in intermarriage patterns and differences between urban and rural areas."

[Families in France and Sweden: the search for new models]

"Examination of the evolution of family models in France and Sweden reveals many similar trends: increase in the divorce rate, fall in marriage and fertility rates, decrease in the size of the average family, increase in the number of single parent families, diversity of rearranged households, etc. However, the authors stress the extent to which the historical and ideological context of this evolution is different in the two countries. Whereas new conjugal models are diffused rapidly in Sweden without provoking reactions of rejection, a certain ideology in France recommends an ideal of conjugal stability and demands a policy openly favouring an increased birth rate. The Swedes find contraception and abortion natural whereas they are still the subject of impassioned debates in France. The attitude to children is very different in the two countries. However, in both cases, although the evolution of family ties still has an experimental aspect it seems sufficiently radical to make it necessary to rethink the nature of social ties in general." (SUMMARY IN ENG)

[French people acquiring citizenship by marriage and their spouses: a diverse and changing situation]

"After a brief presentation on the history of the law concerning acquisition of French nationality by marriage, the authors analyse the new bill passed in 1993. They go on to describe the social characteristics of people who acquire French nationality by marriage and their spouses....The social and cultural characteristics of the spouse explain the recent changes among those who have acquired French nationality by marriage. For instance, the number of couples that consist of a French husband and a foreign wife, as compared to those where the situation is reversed, depends on the nationality of the foreign spouse. The increasing age-gap between spouses can be attributed to their increasing socio-professional level and to changes in the distribution by nationality among the foreign population." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND SPA)

The future of woman's own name and the transformation of family structures

The author explores "the changes in attitude [in France] which may have accompanied the recent anti-marriage trend mirrored by the spread of unmarried cohabitation and divorce. She has chosen to investigate opinions in France concerning a secularly one-sided aspect of the marriage system: almost all women take their husband's name when they marry and children are automatically given only their father's name....We...look for signs of change: first, cohortwise, by examining age-specific differences in attitude; second, change related to social groups and the diffusion of new opinions....Finally, we compare these results with data from preceding surveys and suggest what the prospects may be for woman's name."