Home > Publications . Search All . Browse All . Country . Browse PSC Pubs . PSC Report Series

PSC In The News

RSS Feed icon

Bailey and Dynarski cited in piece on why quality education should be a "civil and moral right"

Kalousova and Burgard find credit card debt increases likelihood of foregoing medical care

Bachman says findings on teens' greater materialism, slipping work ethic should be interpreted with caution

Highlights

Arline Geronimus wins Excellence in Research Award from School of Public Health

Yu Xie to give DBASSE's David Lecture April 30, 2013 on "Is American Science in Decline?"

U-M grad programs do well in latest USN&WR "Best" rankings

Sheldon Danziger named president of Russell Sage Foundation

Next Brown Bag



Back in September

Twitter Follow us 
on Twitter 

"Everything's There Except Money": How Money Shapes Decisions to Marry Among Cohabitors

Publication Abstract

Smock, Pamela, Wendy Manning, and Meredith Porter. 2005. ""Everything's There Except Money": How Money Shapes Decisions to Marry Among Cohabitors." Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(3): 680-696.

Cohabitation is now the modal path to marriage in the United States. Drawing on data from 115 in-depth interviews with cohabitors from the working and lower middle classes, this paper explores how economics shape marital decision making. We find that cohabitors typically perceive financial issues as important for marriage, and we delineate several key themes. Whereas some social scientists speculate that cohabitors must think that marriage will change their lives in order to motivate marriage, our findings suggest that cohabitors believe marriage should occur once something has already changed—in this case, their financial status. Our results also imply that political and scientific discourse on financial problems as deterrents to marriage should be broadened beyond a focus on poor unmarried parents.

DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00162.x (Full Text)

Country of focus: United States.

Browse | Search : All Pubs | Next