Timing of a First Romantic Union Among Sexual Minority Young Adults.

Cohabitation and marriage are critical milestones during the transition to adulthood; however, there is limited research on the timing of young adults' first same-sex unions. There is some evidence that same-sex unions may be delayed, particularly for men. Further, formation of both same- and different-sex dating relationships, common among sexual minority young adults, may also extend to cohabitation and marriage. We used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to predict the timing of a first romantic union, defined as a cohabitation or marriage, among sexual minority young adults. We then distinguished between women and men and the timing of a different-sex versus a same-sex union. Compared with heterosexual young adults, lesbian and gay young adults entered a union at later ages (driven by men), whereas bisexual young adults entered a union at younger ages (driven by women). Lesbian and gay young adults who entered a first union with a same-sex partner did so at later ages than those who entered a first union with a different-sex partner. Results suggest that patterns of sexual minority dating relationship formation might extend to unions.

Sexual Motives, Stress, and Depressive Symptoms Among Midlife Different-Sex and Same-Sex Couples.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Within relationships, sexual motives and stress are independent determinants of psychological health, with notable gendered patterns. However, previous research largely focuses on young adults and different-sex couples. Both sexual motives and levels of stress may be uniquely important to psychological health in midlife, and in potentially different ways for same-sex and different-sex couples. This study examined how the associations between sexual motives, stress, and depressive symptoms differ for midlife men and women in same-sex and different-sex marriages. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Using dyadic data from same-sex and different-sex midlife married couples (N = 830 individuals; 415 couples), we examined the associations of intrinsic (e.g., sex for enjoyment and pleasure) and extrinsic (e.g., sex to please one's spouse) motives for having sex with depressive symptoms and tested whether these associations differed by levels of stress for same-sex and different-sex spouses. RESULTS: Intrinsic sexual motives were associated with fewer depressive symptoms only for same-sex married couples under high stress. Extrinsic sexual motives were related to greater depressive symptoms for women in low-stress conditions and men in high-stress conditions, and this did not differ for same-sex compared to different-sex marriages. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Results show that the interplay between sexual motives and stress varies for men and women in same-sex and different-sex marriages. These findings underscore the importance of considering both gender and sexuality in studying sexual motives in midlife and suggest sexual motives as a useful treatment focus for protecting the psychological health of midlife married couples.

Timing to a first relationship among youth: Variability by sexual orientation development.

Romantic relationships are developmentally salient across the transition to adulthood, yet the timing to a first relationship for sexual minority youth is largely unknown and is complicated by the developmental timing of sexual orientation development. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to predict the timing to a first relationship among heterosexual and sexual minority youth, defined as those with same-sex attraction and/or a sexual minority identity. We examine variability across subgroups of youth with a sexual minority status in adolescence only, in adulthood only, or in both developmental periods, and by gender. Participants with lesbian/gay sexual orientations emerging during adulthood delay a first relationship compared to their heterosexual peers. Those with bisexual orientations only in adulthood enter relationships earlier than their heterosexual peers, particularly women. Results suggest that patterns of dating relationship formations differ by distinct developmental contexts of sexual orientation development.

Relationship Identities Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Adults: An Exploratory Study.

Relationship identities are established through romantic interactions and informed by sociohistorical context. The associations between lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) identities and identities in other domains, including relationship identities, have yet to receive sufficient attention from researchers. In this exploratory study, through a qualitative analysis of life-history interviews from the Generations Study, we identified participants who described their identity in terms of a romantic relationship (e.g., partner, husband/wife). In describing their relationship identities, two themes emerged: (a) negotiation of a relationship identity with other identities, such as gender or race/ethnicity and (b) navigating being visible or invisible within the LGB community and/or at the societal level. Together these themes suggest that relationships may be salient components of personal identity when sexual minority individuals in a couple either individually or jointly feel that they stand out (or that they become invisible).

Heteronormativity in the Lives of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Young People.

Heteronormativity, as defined in queer theory, is the presumption and privileging of heterosexuality. Research on how young people make sense of and narrate heteronormativity in their own lives is needed to inform theories of heteronormativity. Using queer and intersectional frameworks, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 sexual and gender minority young people (ages 18 to 24), analyzed using thematic analysis, to examine how young adults make sense of heteronormativity. Participants discussed how gender expression informed both sexuality and sexual attraction. Participants prioritized biological parenthood over other family constructions but rarely discussed marriage. Gender, sexuality, and race contributed important contexts for how participants described heteronormativity in their lives and should be the focus of future research. Finally, binaries of gender, sexuality, and family intersected in participants' lives and their narrative constructions.

Differences in how spouses influence each other's alcohol use in same- and different-sex marriages: A daily diary study.

RATIONALE: Different-sex spouses influence each other's alcohol consumption, with women having more influence on their spouses than men. Because women drink less than men, this long-term influence partly explains why married men and women consume less alcohol than their unmarried peers. However, much less is known about possible gender differences in the ways spouses influence each other's alcohol use on a day-to-day basis in same-compared to different-sex marriages. Because sexual minority people are at higher risk for alcohol use disorders compared to their heterosexual counterparts, such knowledge could shed light on ways to reduce this risk and alcohol use disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual people. METHOD: We use 10 days of diary data collected in 2014-2015 in the United States from 157 female same-sex, 106 male same-sex, and 115 different-sex married couples in midlife (ages 35-65) to examine how one spouse's drinking influences how much the other spouse drinks on the following day. RESULTS: Men reported higher levels of daily drinking than women; after including covariates, men in different-sex marriages reported drinking at the highest levels. Results from actor-partner interdependence models show that men in same- and different-sex marriages drink more, and women in different-sex marriages drink less when their spouse drinks more the previous day. Female same-sex spouses did not change their drinking behaviors in response to their spouse's drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Overall higher rates of drinking among men in same-sex marriages suggest an accumulation effect of drinking that may contribute to sexual minority health disparities. Women and men in different-sex marriages may be engaging in social control or navigating masculinity norms. Women in same-sex marriages may not feel the need to adjust to low levels of drinking by their spouses. Findings suggest that spousal influence over alcohol consumption unfolds differently in same-sex compared to different-sex marriages.

Two Methods for Studying the Developmental Significance of Family Structure Trajectories.

Objective: The objective of this research note is to use both sequence analysis (SA) and repeated-measures latent class analysis (LCA) to identify children's family structure trajectories from birth through age 15 and compare how the two sets of trajectories predict alcohol use across the transition from adolescence into young adulthood. Background: Contemporary family scholars have studied the influence of changes in family structure, often referred to as family structure instability, on child and adolescent development. Typically, this research has focused on either the number or type of transitions children have experienced, but statistical advances are increasing the viability of more complex person-centered approaches to this issue, such as SA and LCA. The choice to use one approach or the other, however, is often discipline specific and relies on different assumptions and estimation techniques that may produce different results. Method: The authors used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth-Child and Youth Cohort (N = 11,515) to identify clusters (using SA) and classes (using repeated-measures LCA) that represented children's family structure trajectories from birth through age 15. Using two multiple-group random slope models, the authors predicted alcohol use across adolescence and young adulthood (ages 16-24) among the clusters (Model 1) and classes (Model 2). Results: The SA identified five clusters, but the LCA further differentiated the sample with more detail on timing and identified eight classes. The sensitivity to timing in the LCA solution was substantively relevant to alcohol use across the transition to young adulthood. Conclusion: Overall, the SA is perhaps more suited to research questions requiring exclusive group membership in large, comparative analyses, and the LCA more appropriate when the research questions include timing or focus on transitioning into or out of single-parent and stepfamily homes.

The Psychological Toll of Emotion Work in Same-Sex and Different-Sex Marital Dyads.

Objective: This study considers how the provision of daily emotion work may affect the psychological well-being of the emotion worker, and how this linkage may vary for men and women in same- and different-sex marriages. Background: Emotion work-work intended to bolster a spouse's well-being by reading and managing the spouse's emotional needs-is common within marital relationships and often gendered, with women more aware of and concerned with emotion work than men. Yet, the psychological cost of performing emotion work is largely unexplored. Method: This study relies on 10 days of daily experiences data from spouses in same- and different-sex marriages (n = 756 individuals). Mixed effects multilevel regression modeling is used to examine how the provision of emotion work is associated with the emotion workers' psychological well-being. Results: Providing emotion work is inversely associated with emotion workers' psychological well-being, especially when provided for a spouse with elevated depressive symptoms. These estimated effects are generally similar for men and women but greater for those married to a man than for those married to a woman, whether in a same- or different-sex marriage. Conclusion: Emotion work appears to adversely affect the worker's own psychological well-being, especially when a spouse has elevated depressive symptoms and when one's spouse is a man. These results point to the importance of dyadic approaches and consideration of gendered relationship dynamics of same- as well as different-sex couples in studies of emotion work and other marital processes.

The intergenerational transmission of partnering.

As divorce and cohabitation dissolution in the US have increased, partnering has expanded to the point that sociologists describe a merry-go-round of partners in American families. Could one driver of the increase in the number of partners be an intergenerational transmission of partnering? We discuss three theoretical perspectives on potential mechanisms that would underlie an intergenerational transmission of partnering: the transmission of economic hardship, the transmission of marriageable characteristics and relationship skills, and the transmission of relationship commitment. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child and Young Adult study (NLSY79 CYA) and their mothers in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), we examined the intergenerational transmission of partnering, including both marital and cohabitating unions, using prospective measures of family and economic instability as well as exploiting sibling data to try to identify potential mechanisms. Even after controlling for maternal demographic characteristics and socioeconomic factors, the number of maternal partners was positively associated with offspring's number of partners. Hybrid sibling Poisson regression models that examined sibling differential experiences of maternal partners indicated that there were no differences between siblings who witnessed more or fewer maternal partners. Overall, results suggested that the transmission of poor marriageable characteristics and relationship skills from mother to child may warrant additional attention as a potential mechanism through which the number of partners continues across generations.

A cohort comparison of trends in first cohabitation duration in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates U.S. first cohabitation duration between young adults born in the 1950s and young adults born in the 1980s, and how socioeconomic resources contribute to cohabitation duration by cohort. METHODS: Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979 and 1997 (NLSY79 and NLSY97), I employ life table estimates and competing-risks Cox proportional hazard models to study how cohabitation duration and transitions out of cohabitation have changed over time. RESULTS: Young adult cohabitations are short-lived, regardless of cohort; however, NLSY97 cohabiting youth were slower to marry or dissolve than NLSY79 cohabitors. Socioeconomically advantaged NLSY79 youth experienced short-term cohabitation followed by marriage. In the NLSY97 cohort, results provide support for the delinking of marriage and cohabitation, regardless of socioeconomic status. CONTRIBUTION: This study is the first longitudinal cohort study to explore young adult cohabitation duration in the United States. Additionally this study empirically tests how socioeconomic resources contribute to remaining in cohabitation.

Emotional health across the transition to first and second unions among emerging adults.

The link between romantic relationships and emotional health has been extensively examined and suggests that marriage provides more emotional health benefits than cohabiting or dating relationships. However, the contemporary context of intimate relationships has changed and these associations warrant reexamination among emerging adults in the 2000s. We examined the change in emotional health across the entrance into first and second unions, including cohabiting unions, direct marriage (marriage without premarital cohabitation), and marriage preceded by cohabitation. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997, a nationally representative panel study of youth born between 1980 and 1984 in the United States, pooled fixed-effects regression models indicated that entrance into first cohabiting unions and direct marriages, and all second unions, were significantly associated with reduced emotional distress. Gender differences were found for first unions only; for men, only direct marriage was associated with an emotional health benefit, while both direct marriage and cohabitation benefited women's emotional health.