A Missing Gender Explanation? Implications of Women's Relationship Preferences for U.S. Marital Decline

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 13. Family Regimes, Demographic Anxiety, and Governance

Abstract

This study analyzes in-depth qualitative interviews with 120 single heterosexual women (ages 20-58) in the United States to explore women's desires for the “normative marriage and family package,” defined as heterosexual and gender complementary pursuit of marriage and childrearing within a shared household. We explore how women across birth cohorts make sense of gendered norms around marriage and demonstrate how the younger cohorts of women have more time to develop their own preferences for autonomy as well as greater exposure to persisting gender inequalities within heterosexual marriages. Almost three-quarters of the women interviewed reported interest in the normative package growing up and as young adults, which we find ranged from strongly desiring to ambivalently assuming future marriage and children. By the time the women were interviewed, however, a substantial fraction of the women no longer sought all aspects of this arrangement, with some seeking non-normative relationship configurations and others opting out of engagement with men entirely. This shift away from normative marriage and family expectations was particularly pronounced among more recent birth cohorts as young women increasingly spend time unmarried and economically independent. Both positive experiences with singlehood and negative experiences with relationships motivated their changing preferences. Our results suggest that women use a distancing from normative aspirations as a strategy for managing the gendered risks of unequal heterosexual relationships. We argue that in order to make sense of marital decline in the US, it is critical to examine women’s experiences within heterosexual romantic relationships relative to their perceived benefits and costs. We conclude with potential implications for the future of marriage given the current trends of marriage and fertility decline.

Authors

• Hannah Tessler, University of Michigan

• Elizabeth A. Armstrong, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor