Earnings Equality and Relationship Stability for Same-Sex and Heterosexual Couples

Comparing same- and different-sex relationship dynamics: Experiences of young adults in Taiwan

BACKGROUND

Few studies of same-sex relationships are able to capture the dynamics of these relationships from formation to dissolution, and even fewer provide evidence on these dynamics in a non-Western context.

OBJECTIVE

Using retrospective relationship history data collected from a nationally representative sample of young adults, this study compares the processes of forming and terminating relationships between same- and different-sex couples in Taiwan, an Asian society featuring both strong parental influences on children's mate selection and an ongoing legislative effort to legalize same-sex marriage.

RESULTS

Results from event-history models show that factors associated with relationship formation and dissolution are largely similar for same- and different-sex unions and that same-sex relationships do not have higher dissolution rates. Nevertheless, premarital coresidence with parents, which is likely to amplify parental influences on children's mate selection, deters the entry into and accelerates the dissolution of same-sex relationships more than it does different-sex relationships. Moreover, same-sex relationships are more heterogamous in family economic background, but more homogamous in age and education level, than different-sex ones.

CONTRIBUTION

This study is among the first to provide evidence on the dynamics of same- and different-sex relationships in a non-Western context. Aside from a few differences between same- and different-sex relationships related to parental influences, our study provides strong evidence that same- and different-sex couples experience intimacies in similar ways-even in a relatively conservative cultural context like Taiwan.

The Economic Foundations of Cohabiting Couples' Union Transitions

In recent decades, cohabitation has become an increasingly important relationship context for U.S. adults and their children, a union status characterized by high levels of instability. To understand why some cohabiting couples marry but others separate, researchers have drawn on theories emphasizing the benefits of specialization, the persistence of the male breadwinner norm, low income as a source of stress and conflict, and rising economic standards associated with marriage (the marriage bar). Because of conflicting evidence and data constraints, however, important theoretical questions remain. This study uses survival analysis with prospective monthly data from nationally representative panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation from 1996-2013 to test alternative theories of how money and work affect whether cohabiting couples marry or separate. Analyses indicate that the economic foundations of cohabiting couples' union transitions do not lie in economic specialization or only men's ability to be good providers. Instead, results for marriage support marriage bar theory: adjusting for couples' absolute earnings, increases in wealth and couples' earnings relative to a standard associated with marriage strongly predict marriage. For dissolution, couples with higher and more equal earnings are significantly less likely to separate. Findings demonstrate that within-couple earnings equality promotes stability, and between-couple inequalities in economic resources are critical in producing inequalities in couples' relationship outcomes.

Gender and the Stability of Same-Sex and Different-Sex Relationships Among Young Adults

Most research on the stability of adult relationships has focused on coresidential (cohabiting or married) unions and estimates rates of dissolution for the period of coresidence. Studies examining how the stability of coresidential unions differs by sex composition have typically found that same-sex female couples have higher rates of dissolution than same-sex male couples and different-sex couples. We argue that the more elevated rates of dissolution for same-sex female couples are a by-product of the focus on coresidential unions. We use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to compare rates of dissolution based on the total duration of romantic and sexual relationships for same-sex male couples, same-sex female couples, and different-sex couples. Results from hazard models that track the stability of young adult relationships from the time they are formed demonstrate that male couples have substantially higher dissolution rates than female couples and different-sex couples. Results based on models restricted to the period of coresidence corroborate the counterintuitive finding from earlier studies that female couples have the highest rates of dissolving coresidential unions. This study underlines the importance of comparisons between these couple types for a better understanding of the role that institutions and gender play in the stability of contemporary relationships.

Homogamy in Masculinity-Femininity Is Positively Linked to Relationship Quality in Gay Male Couples from the Czech Republic

The main aims of this research were to test the similarity of masculinity-femininity in long-term male same-sex couples from the Czech Republic and to examine whether this similarity predicts higher relationship quality. In Study 1, participants (N = 30) and their partners completed the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) and the Childhood Gender Nonconformity Scale (CGN). In Study 2, participants (N = 40) and their partners completed DAS and the Gender Diagnosticity Scale (GD). Results showed that the partners were no more alike than individuals paired at random in their CGN or GD, but greater similarity in CGN between partners increased Dyadic Cohesion (r = -.41 [-.71, -.02]) and Affectional Expression (r = -.38 [-.60, -.13]). Our results add to previous evidence showing that similarity in same-sex couples increased relationship quality. Although, on average, gay men were not coupled on the basis of homogamy in gender roles, their relationship quality is linked to the gender egalitarian model rather than to the gender stratified one. Thus, a widespread stereotype suggesting that same-sex partners are divided by different gender roles seems to be, at least in our sample from a Western society, rather incorrect.

Political economy of family life: couple's earnings, welfare regime and union dissolution

This study examines how institutional settings moderate the relation of couples' relative and absolute earnings to the likelihood of union dissolution. Based on ECHP data, it covers 12 countries in four welfare regimes. The relationship between a couple's economic dependence and the likelihood of union dissolution were found to differ across regimes. With regard to relative earnings, equality in earnings lowered the risk of separation only in regimes characterized by a high degree of defamilialization, through either the state or the market. As for absolute earnings, women's and men's earnings were significantly related to the risk of union dissolution only in regimes where state defamilialization is low.

Influence of Heterogamy by Religion on Risk of Marital Dissolution: A Cohort Study of 20,000 Couples

Heterogamous marriages, in which partners have dissimilar attributes (e.g. by socio-economic status or ethnicity), are often at elevated risk of dissolution. We investigated the influences of heterogamy by religion and area of residence on risk of marital dissolution in Northern Ireland, a country with a history of conflict and residential segregation along Catholic-Protestant lines. We expected Catholic-Protestant marriages to have elevated risks of dissolution, especially in areas with high concentrations of a single religious group where opposition to intermarriage was expected to be high. We estimated risks of marital dissolution from 2001 to 2011 for 19,791 couples drawn from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (a record linkage study), adjusting for a range of compositional and contextual factors using multilevel logistic regression. Dissolution risk decreased with increasing age and higher socio-economic status. Catholic-Protestant marriages were rare (5.9 % of the sample) and were at increased risk of dissolution relative to homogamous marriages. We found no association between local population composition and dissolution risk for Catholic-Protestant couples, indicating that partner and household characteristics may have a greater influence on dissolution risk than the wider community.

Sarantakos's Research on Same-Sex Parenting in Australia and New Zealand: Importance, Substance, and Corroboration with Research from the United States

Sarantakos (1996a) compared teacher ratings and other outcomes for the children of heterosexual married, heterosexual cohabiting, and homosexual parents and reported numerous significant, substantial differences. Few scholars have taken the effect sizes of his results into account or have considered his larger program of research. Sarantakos's research yielded many interesting findings with respect to children's academic performance, sexual orientation, use of alcohol and drugs, sexual deviance, and gender identity with respect to parents' parenting values, relationship stability, conflict, monogamy, and religiosity or moral values, many of which have been corroborated by U.S. or British research. In addition, the methodological quality of his research appears to be at least above average, especially for research done 20 or more years ago. He appears to have been unbiased with respect to same-sex families. His results disseminated via multiple publications should be taken into account in literature reviews concerning same-sex parenting.