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Predicting remarriage
Abstract
A 15 year longitudinal sample of divorced women (676) and men (284) was used to study the effects of the remarriage market on remarriage possibilities. Using an exchange model, it was proposed that remarrying individuals would seek homogamous mates, but that homogamous preferences might be comprised when the need to remarry was high. Independent variables of age, race, religion, and education were used as measures of homogamy, and presence of children and wages were used to assess need. It was hypothesized that an unbalanced field of eligibles would constrain the amount of remarriage. It was also hypothesized that the existence of need factors would increase the amount of remarriage despite high competition for homogamous mates and that highly conditions would lead to heterogamous remarriages. Measures of the size of the remarriage market were developed from U.S. Census data. The individual characteristics and eligible pool variables were used as independent variables in multiple regression equations where remarriage was the dependent variable and years since divorce was a control variable. A comparison of the impact of individual characteristics with the effect of the eligible pool variables allowed separation of personal preferences from market effects. It was found that there is more remarriage for young, nonblack, non-Catholic women and young, nonblack men. Black and white women over 50 years of age tend not to remarry due to personal choice, not the lack of potential mates. Women with low wages tend to remarry more than women with more financial security in the form of wages. Presence of children and wages do not affect remarriage for men. When dependent variables reflecting the extent of heterogamous remarriage were created and used in equations with the eligible pool variables, it was found that women with less education and Catholic women tended to remarry heterogamously. Older women who had low wages remarried younger men. Need was not a significant factor for men, and they were able to remarry hypergamously to better educated women and, when they had only medium level wages, to younger women.
Subject Area
Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology
Recommended Citation
Snell, Vivian Schwier, "Predicting remarriage" (1989). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9004707.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9004707