Student Loans, Family Formation Norms, and the Imagined Dissolution of Debt

• In Event: 1283 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Families and Social Institutions

Abstract

This paper uses qualitative and quantitative methods to examine social norms related to student loans and family formation by investigating the beliefs of college students regarding how people should approach marriage and childbearing decisions when they have student loans. We presented students with a series of vignettes regarding a theoretical couple with loans and asked questions about how that couple should behave, and vignettes about a hypothetical partner who disclosed to the respondent that they had loans. Students who had loans also described how they would behave differently if their student debt were forgiven. Responses were collected from a survey of undergraduates at two universities in 2017 (N=2,928) and from in-depth interviews with 24 graduating seniors with loans at those two universities in 2016 and 2017. We find that a significant minority of young adults believes marriage should be delayed and nearly half believe childbearing should be delayed when young adults have student loan debt to repay. Many would hesitate to marry someone with debt. There are gender differences in the extent to which young adults believe student loans should delay marriage and childbearing and what they imagine doing differently were their debt to disappear.

Authors

• Joan Maya Mazelis, Rutgers University-Camden

• Arielle Kuperberg, University of North Carolina-Greensboro