Part of the gender gap in voting for Democrats arises because a higher proportion of women than men voters are Black.

Women voted for the Democratic candidate more than men did in each US presidential election since 1980. We show that part of the gender gap stems from the fact that a higher proportion of women than men voters are Black, and Black voters overwhelmingly choose Democratic candidates. Past research shows that Black men have especially high rates of death, incarceration, and disenfranchisement due to criminal convictions. These disparities reduce the share of men voters who are Black. We show that the gender difference in racial composition explains 24% of the gender gap in voting Democratic. The gender gap in voting Democratic is especially large among those who are never-married, and, among them, the differing racial composition of men and women voters is more impactful than in the population at large, explaining 43% of the gender gap. We consider an alternative hypothesis that income differences between single men and women explain the gender gap in voting, but our analysis leads us to reject it. Although unmarried women are poorer than unmarried men, and lower-income voters vote slightly more Democratic, the latter difference is too small for income to explain much of the gender gap in voting. In short, the large gender gap among unmarried voters is not a reflection of the lower incomes of women's households but does reflect the fact that women voters are disproportionately Black. We used the General Social Survey as the data source for the analysis, then replicated results with the American National Election Survey data.

Wealth and Divorce.

In the United States, wealthier couples have lower divorce risk. Wealth may stabilize marriage through its material value, especially by easing financial stress, or by providing symbolic resources, especially signaling that couples meet normative financial standards for marriage. We first show that the negative association between wealth and divorce holds net of a rich set of controls. All else being equal, having $40,000 in wealth rather than $0 is associated with as big a decline in average predicted divorce risk as having no nonmarital births versus at least one. Second, we show that the negative association between wealth and divorce risk is steepest at low positive wealth levels. Net of covariates, having $40,000 in wealth rather than $0 is associated with as big a decline in average predicted divorce risk as having $400,000 rather than $40,000. Third, we consider evidence for the symbolic perspective, which emphasizes the stabilizing role of owning visible physical assets, and the material perspective, which suggests unsecured debt heightens divorce risk. Consistent with the symbolic perspective, we find that with net worth held constant, ownership of homes and vehicles is negatively associated with divorce risk. However, more research is needed to fully adjudicate between the symbolic and material perspectives.

Progress toward gender equality in the United States has slowed or stalled.

We examine change in multiple indicators of gender inequality for the period of 1970 to 2018. The percentage of women (age 25 to 54) who are employed rose continuously until ∼2000 when it reached its highest point to date of 75%; it was slightly lower at 73% in 2018. Women have surpassed men in receipt of baccalaureate and doctoral degrees. The degree of segregation of fields of study declined dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s, but little since then. The desegregation of occupations continues but has slowed its pace. Examining the hourly pay of those aged 25 to 54 who are employed full-time, we found that the ratio of women's to men's pay increased from 0.61 to 0.83 between 1970 and 2018, rising especially fast in the 1980s, but much slower since 1990. In sum, there has been dramatic progress in movement toward gender equality, but, in recent decades, change has slowed and on some indicators stalled entirely.

Do values explain the low employment levels of Muslim women around the world? A within- and between-country analysis.

Using worldwide data from the World Values Survey (WVS) gathered in 2010-2014, we examine two distinct ways in which Islam may be associated with women's employment. We show that, within their countries, Muslim women are less likely to be employed than women of other religions. We also examine between-country differences and find that, net of education and family statuses, the employment levels of women living in countries that are 90-100 per cent Muslim are not significantly different than those living in countries that are only 0-20 per cent Muslim. Then we test a prevailing view: that Islam discourages gender egalitarian values, and that these values - held by women themselves or people around them - explain why Muslim women are less likely to be employed than women of other religions within their own countries. Despite the rich measures of values in the WVS and a large sample, we find no evidence that values explain any of the lower employment of Muslim women, mainly because values have little or no effect on women's employment. Thus, we conclude that most of the world's gap in employment between Muslim women and other women is within-country and is not explained by gender ideology. Future research should examine alternative hypotheses, including ethno-religious discrimination.

Desire for and to Avoid Pregnancy during the Transition to Adulthood.

Unintended pregnancies disproportionately occur among teenage women, yet little is known about the determinants of pregnancy desire among this group. We use a comprehensive baseline survey and weekly data on pregnancy desires to investigate which unmarried 18-20 year-old women want a pregnancy, want to avoid pregnancy, and report consistent pregnancy desire and disinclination. Variables that positively predict pregnancy desire generally negatively predict desire to avoid pregnancy. While most young women have no desire and strong disinclination in most weeks, childhood receipt of public assistance is a strong predictor of wanting pregnancy and not wanting to avoid it. Comparing nested models suggests that the effects of childhood disadvantage operate through social environments where early pregnancy is less stigmatized. Young women in serious relationships, who are depressed, and who are not pursuing post-secondary education have more desire for pregnancy and less disinclination, but little of childhood disadvantage is mediated by these factors.

When one spouse has an affair, who is more likely to leave?

OBJECTIVE: We examine whether having an affair around the time a marriage broke up is associated with being the person who wanted the divorce more or the person who was left. We also examine predictors of having an affair around the end of the marriage. METHODS: We use the National Survey of Families and Households, using each ex-spouse's reports of which spouse wanted the divorce more and whether either was having an affair around the end of the marriage. We combine latent class models with logistic regression, treating either spouse's report as a fallible indicator of the reality of whether each had an affair and who wanted the divorce more. RESULTS: We find that a spouse having an affair is more likely to be the one who wanted the divorce more. We find little gender difference in who has affairs preceding divorce. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that it is more common to leave because one is having an affair, or to have an affair because one has decided to leave, than it is to discover one's spouse having an affair and initiate a divorce.

Cohort trends in premarital first births: what role for the retreat from marriage?

We examine cohort trends in premarital first births for U.S. women born between 1920 and 1964. The rise in premarital first births is often argued to be a consequence of the retreat from marriage, with later ages at first marriage resulting in more years of exposure to the risk of a premarital first birth. However, cohort trends in premarital first births may also reflect trends in premarital sexual activity, premarital conceptions, and how premarital conceptions are resolved. We decompose observed cohort trends in premarital first births into components reflecting cohort trends in (1) the age-specific risk of a premarital conception taken to term; (2) the age-specific risk of first marriages not preceded by such a conception, which will influence women's years of exposure to the risk of a premarital conception; and (3) whether a premarital conception is resolved by entering a first marriage before the resulting first birth (a "shotgun marriage"). For women born between 1920-1924 and 1945-1949, increases in premarital first births were primarily attributable to increases in premarital conceptions. For women born between 1945-1949 and 1960-1964, increases in premarital first births were primarily attributable to declines in responding to premarital conceptions by marrying before the birth. Trends in premarital first births were affected only modestly by the retreat from marriages not preceded by conceptions-a finding that holds for both whites and blacks. These results cast doubt on hypotheses concerning "marriageable" men and instead suggest that increases in premarital first births resulted initially from increases in premarital sex and then later from decreases in responding to a conception by marrying before a first birth.

Educational differences in US parents' time spent in child care: The role of culture and cross-spouse influence.

We explore effects of parents' education on how much time they spend in child care, using a sample of married and cohabiting parents from the 2003 to 2011 American Time Use Study. We find that more educated parents spend more time in child care, despite having higher employment rates. For men, there is some mixed evidence that their own education increases their child care time, but much stronger evidence that their child care time is influenced by their wives' education. For women, it is largely their own education affecting their child care time. We also assess whether the higher earnings of the well educated, which could be used to outsource housework, explains why they spend more time in child care. Results do not support this hypothesis; educational differences do not change much under controls for his and her earnings or housework. This suggests that the effects of education on child care result from different cultural conceptions of child rearing held by the well educated, especially by women, whose education affects both their own and their husbands' child care time.

She left, he left: how employment and satisfaction affect women's and men's decisions to leave marriages.

Studies examining determinants of divorce have largely ignored differences between factors that elevate wives' and husbands' initiation of divorce. The authors use longitudinal data and a latent class model embedded in a competing-risks event history model to assess distinct predictors of wives and husbands leaving marriages. They find that when men are not employed, either spouse is more likely to leave. When wives report better-than-average marital satisfaction, their employment affects neither spouse's exit. However, when wives report below-average marital satisfaction, their employment makes it more likely they will leave. The authors' findings suggest that theories of divorce require "gendering" to reflect asymmetric gender change.

Education Differences in Intended and Unintended Fertility.

Using a hazards framework and panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979-2004), we analyze the fertility patterns of a recent cohort of white and black women in the United States. We examine how completed fertility varies by women's education, differentiating between intended and unintended births. We find that the education gradient on fertility comes largely from unintended childbearing, and it is not explained by child-bearing desires or opportunity costs, the two most common explanations in previous research. Less-educated women want no more children than the more educated, so this factor explains none of their higher completed fertility. Less-educated women have lower wages, but wages have little of the negative effect on fertility predicted by economic theories of opportunity cost. We propose three other potential mechanisms linking low education and unintended childbearing, focusing on access to contraception and abortion, relational and economic uncertainty, and consistency in the behaviors necessary to avoid unintended pregnancies. Our work highlights the need to incorporate these mechanisms into future research.

Cleaning up their act: the effects of marriage and cohabitation on licit and illicit drug use.

We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate changes in binge drinking, marijuana use, and cigarette smoking surrounding young adults' first experiences of cohabitation and marriage. Both marriage and cohabitation are accompanied by decreases in some risk behaviors, but reductions surrounding marriage are larger and most consistent, particularly for men. Binge drinking and marijuana use respond to these events, especially marriage, but smoking does not.

Union formation in fragile families.

In this article, we use data from a new longitudinal survey--the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study--to examine union formation among unmarried parents who have just had a child together. We used multinomial logistic regression to estimate the effects of economic, cultural/interpersonal, and other factors on whether (relative to having no romantic relationship) parents are romantically involved and living apart, cohabiting, or married to each other about one year after the child's birth. Net of other factors (including baseline relationship status), women's education and men's earnings encourage marriage. Cultural and interpersonal factors also have strong effects: women's trust of men, both parents' positive attitudes toward marriage, and both parents' assessment of the supportiveness in their relationship encourage marriage. Supportiveness also encourages cohabitation, while fathers having a problem with alcohol or drugs and reporting higher conflict in the relationship discourage cohabitation: Fathers' physical violence deters couples' remaining in romantic nonresident relationships.