Love and Money: Socioeconomic Status and Attitudes towards Marriage

• In Event: 054 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Gender, Race, and Class

Abstract

Changing rates of marriage and the rise of non-marital childbearing and cohabitation, especially among individuals of lower socioeconomic status, raise questions about what is causing these differences in family formation and structure by class. Qualitative research to date has established that it is not a result of different preferences for marriage, and has introduced several possible theories about the reasons why the low rates of marriage rate among low-income men and women persist. However, there is very limited work allowing for nationally-representative comparison of individuals across socioeconomic status with respect to their prospective aspirations for and ideas about marriage. This analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health attempts to conduct a more targeted examination of conceptualization of marriage and the importance of marriage across socioeconomic statuses by using measures of marriage values as opposed to marriage histories. Results support qualitative findings that show that marriage, as well as love as an element of a successful marriage, remain important across socioeconomic status levels. The importance of money to a successful marriage, is much more variable; those of lower socioeconomic status, black respondents, and parents, are more likely to say that money is important. Perhaps more notably, multivariate regression analysis suggests that net of socioeconomic status, cultural differences across political affiliation, religious affiliation, race, and ethnicity might be more meaningful predictors of variation in about the importance of money and love in marriage.

Author

• Youngmin Yi, Cornell University