Changing Gender Norms and Marriage Dynamics in the United States

• Author: Léa Pessin
• Date: 01 February 2018
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12444

L P Pennsylvania State University

Changing Gender Norms and Marriage Dynamics in

the United States

Using a regional measure of gendernorms from

the General Social Surveys and marital histo-

ries from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics,

this study explored how gender norms were

associated with women’s marriage dynamics

between 1968 and 2012. Results suggested that

a higher prevalence of egalitariangender norms

predicted a decline in marriage formation. This

decline was, however, only true for women

without a college degree. For college-educated

women, the association between gender norms

and marriage formation became positive when

gender egalitarianism prevailed. The ndings

also revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship

between gender norms and divorce: An initial

increase in divorce was observed when gender

norms were predominantly traditional. The

association, however, reversed as gender norms

became egalitarian. No differencesby education

were found for divorce. The ndings partially

support the gender revolution framework but

also highlight greater barriers to marriage

for low-educated women as societies embrace

gender equality.

In the second half of the 20th century, the rede-

ned gender roles of women at home and in the

labor market translated into a withdrawal from

marriage, a decline in fertility, and an increase in

Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State

University,704 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA16802

(lpessin@psu.edu).

Key Words: divorce, education, family roles,marriage, U.S.

families.

marital instability. Unexpectedly, in the United

States, divorce rates not only stabilized in the

1980s but also appear to have declined since

then (J. R. Goldstein, 1999). Following a simi-

lar pattern, divorce rates also reached a plateau

in several European countries (Härkönen, 2014).

By the late 2000s, fertility trends also stopped

declining across the developed world, with few

exceptions (J. R. Goldstein, Sobotka, & Jasilion-

iene, 2009).

A recent and novel explanation to demo-

graphic change suggests that the prevalence of

egalitarian gender norms is key to understand-

ing changes in partnership and fertility behaviors

(Esping-Andersen & Billari, 2015; McDonald,

2000). This idea, which I refer to as the gen-

der revolution framework, argues that, starting

from the baby-boom era, demographic change

has undergone two distinct phases (Goldschei-

der, Bernhardt, & Lappegård, 2015). In the

rst phase, the discrepancy between women’s

advancement in the public sphere and persis-

tent traditional behavior in the private sphere

produced an increase in family instability and

a decline in fertility. The second phase emerged

at the turn of the 21st century and is still ongo-

ing. In this phase, we should observe a return

of stable partnerships and fertility rates around

replacement level as institutions and families

start adapting to women’s new roles outside the

household.

An implication of the gender revolution

framework is that changes in society-level gen-

der norms are associated with individual-level

marriage behavior. An initial increase in the

prevalence of egalitarian gender norms is

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (February 2018): 25–41 25

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12444

26 Journal of Marriage and Family

predicted to lead to lower marriage rates and

higher divorce rates. As egalitarian gender

norms become dominant, we should see a

return of stable partnerships. Although previous

studies have shown empirical evidence for the

gender revolution framework’s predictions on

fertility outcomes (Arpino, Esping-Andersen,

& Pessin, 2015; Myrskylä, Kohler, & Billari,

2011), no study has explicitly tested if the

relationship also holds for marriage and divorce.

Furthermore, within the gender revolution

framework, the link between changes in gen-

der norms and partnership behavior are con-

sidered without making explicit reference to

changes in marriage selectivity. I build on the

gender revolution perspective to argue that—in

the United States—the adoption of egalitarian

gender norms affects marriage and divorce rates

unequally across educational groups. Although

previous studies have provided ample support

for an educational gradient of partnership behav-

ior in the United States, little evidence exists

on how college education moderates the rela-

tionship between changes in contextual gender

norms and individual-level propensities to marry

and divorcein the United States (for an exception

on the case of Europe, see Kalmijn, 2013).

This study is framed by two main research

questions. First, is there an association between

the prevalence of egalitarian gender norms and

marriage formation and divorce in the United

States? By addressing this question, I provide

a rst empirical test of the gender revolution

framework and assess whether it holds for the

United States between the late 1960s and the

early 2010s. Second, is the relationship between

contextual gender norms and marriage dynam-

ics even across educational groups? I develop

and test the idea that the adoption of egalitar-

ian gender norms affects marriage and divorce

rates unequally across educational groups. In

particular, I expect that the predictions of the

gender revolution framework of a return to sta-

ble partnerships when societies have adopted

egalitarian gender norms to be limited to the

college-educated only. I argue that in a con-

text of high inequality with limited institutional

support for families, such as the United States,

the lower educated lack the opportunities and

resources to form and maintain egalitarian rela-

tionships. To address these research questions, I

combine gender role attitudes data from the Gen-

eral Social Surveys (GSS; http://gss.norc.org/)

with individual-level marriage histories from

the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID;

https://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/) to understand

how changes in region-level gender norms have

inuenced individual-level marriage dynamics

between 1968 and 2012.

Why the focus on marriage and not all

types of partnership? The gender revolution

framework predicts a return of stable partner-

ships as the revolution nears its completion

(Esping-Andersen & Billari, 2015; Goldschei-

der et al., 2015). In the United States, the

prevalence of cohabitation has continued to

increase since the 1970s (Kennedy & Bumpass,

2008). Nevertheless, in the United States, cohab-

itation cannot be treated as a direct substitute

for marriage. Unlike the patterns observed in

European countries (Cherlin, 2004), cohabiting

unions have become increasingly unstable and

less likely to lead to marriage (Guzzo, 2014).

In addition to being the rst quantitative study

to investigate the relationship between contex-

tual gender norms and individual-level mar-

riage behavior, this study makes three contribu-

tions to the literature. First, I provide a more

comprehensive empirical and theoretical under-

standing of how resources and opportunities,

that is, college education, moderate the predic-

tions of the gender revolution in the United

States. Second, unlike previous studies that have

used cross-sectional data or cross-national data,

I use longitudinal data on marriage behavior

together with historical attitudinal data to cap-

ture the dynamic relationship between changes

in contextual gender norms and the decision

to marry and divorce. Finally, I analyze jointly

both entry into marriage and exit from marriage.

The advantage of considering both events is that

it provides a better understanding of the role

played by marriage selectivity in the relationship

between contextual gender norms and marriage

dynamics.

B

The Gender Revolution Framework

The gender revolution framework was devel-

oped as an alternative theory to the Second

Demographic Transition (Lesthaeghe & van de

Kaa, 1986) to understand recent reversals in

family behavior (Esping-Andersen & Billari,

2015; Goldscheider et al., 2015). The main

tenet of the gender revolution framework is

that, as societies embrace gender egalitarian-

ism, fertility and partnerships are expected to