Calvin Goldscheider

Moving Out and Marriage: What Do Young Adults Expect?.

This paper examines expectations about premarital residential independence among young US adults and is based on data from 1980 high school seniors. About 70% of these young adults expect to move out of the parental home before marriage pointing to ways in which new norms are emerging which fit into patterns of independence in the transition to adulthood. The analysis of the expectations young adults express about when they plan to move out of the parental home and how they relate this to the timing of marriage suggests that there are substantial variations in the factors affecting premarital residential independence and that these relationships raise important issues that relate to theories of gender ethnic and family change. Overall men expect to live away from the parental household before they marry more than do young women those with more parental resources to purchase an independent residence those who expect to marry at an older age and those who do not have ethnic and religious ties that link them as young adults to their parental home until marriage. The higher levels of black expectations for premarital residential independence appear to be primarily linked to the very unusual patterns of marriage increasingly characterizing the black community rather than to socioeconomic background. Hispanics particularly Mexicans and Cubans are less likely to expect to move out of the parental home before marriage. Increasing affluence is leading to greater expectations for residential separation between generations even among ethnic and religious groups with a strong emphasis on family solidarity. Overall most young people whatever their socioeconomic and ethnic background expect to live independently of the parental household before they marry.

Migration and social structure: Analytic issues and comparative perspectives in developing nations

There are profound relationships between migration and social structure, reflecting the varieties of migration types, the complexities of social structure, and the reciprocal ways migration and social structure are interrelated over time, in different societies, for different communities and social groups. Almost every thread of social structure may be linked to migration patterns at macro- and micro-levels of analysis, cross-sectionally and longitudinally, with variation over the life cycle, connections to levels of socioeconomic development, and relationships to social class and subject to political control. This paper focuses on several propositions that identify and illustrate the complexities of these linkages in developing nations and suggests some of the ways in which our understanding of social structure enhances the analysis of migration processes and vice versa.

Ethnicity, Religiosity and Leaving Home: The Structural and Cultural Bases of Traditional Family Values

In this paper we explore the links between ethnicity and religiosity and the transition to adulthood by examining variation in expectations to live independently from parents before marriage. We focus both on the structure of social networks and on the values transmitted within them to discover how they are linked to family life. Our findings show that variation in premarital residential independence is linked in part to the use of a foreign language and foreignness. Residential concentration and ecological and religious institutional contexts are important factors as are the values associated with religious denomination and religiosity. These findings suggest the continuing importance of ethnicity and religiosity as critical elements shaping family norms.

Gender roles, marriage, and residential independence

This article examines the effects of gender role attitudes on leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence among young men and women in the United States in the 1980s. The choice to leave home for unmarried independence is associated with two major changes in family relationships: the shift in parent-child interaction from a traditional emphasis on childrens obedience toward a greater stress on independence, and the shift toward more egalitarian definitions of gender roles in both work and family spheres. We ask the following: What is the effect of holding more modern gender role attitudes on gender differences in leaving home for marriage? Does holding more modern gender role attitudes influence patterns of leaving home for marriage and for unmarried independence differently for men and women? We examine these questions with data from sophomores in the High School and Beyond Survey.

Creating Egalitarian Families among the Adult Children of Turkish- and Polish-Origin Immigrants in Sweden

This article analyzes the factors shaping egalitarian family relationships among those with two Swedish-born parents and those with at least one parent born in Poland or Turkey. We ask: (1) What factors affect sharing domestic tasks and do they also shape the division of child care responsibilities? (2) Do these effects differ, depending on the extent of exposure to Swedish life? We analyze data from a longitudinal survey conducted between 1999 and 2003. Holding egalitarian work–family attitudes affects actual sharing of housework, but much more for those growing up in more socially integrated than in less integrated families.

A further look at catholic fertility

ResumenEl propósito de este trabajo es determinar hasta qué punto la suburbanización ha influido en la tradicional diferencia en fertilidad observada entre católicos y protestantes. Se plantea la hipótesis de que la suburbanización ha servido para disminuir las diferencias religiosas en fertilidad porque en etapas avanzadas de urbanismo como es la suburbanización, los católicos tienen la tendencia a adoptar los patrones defecundidad de sociedades más grandes y secularisadas. La atención se enfocó hacia dos objetivos: (1) Examinar aspectos selectivos sobre fertilidad para catblicos y protestantes que viven en áreas metropolitanas y (2) Analizar diferencias religiosas en fertilidad entre residentes en diferentes puntos de la comunidad metropolitana.Los datos, tomados de una muestra de vivienda en seis áreas metropolitanas y en tres clases sociales, comprobaron los resultados que habían sido encontrados en otros estudios en referencia a las diferencias de fertilidad entre religiones. Los católicos tuvieron familias más grandes, menor promedio de tiempo entre los niños y períodos mayores de fertilidad en comparación con los protestantes aun habiendo sido empleadas muchas variables de control. Examinando las diferencias en fertilidad entre católicos y protestantes en la ciudad central y en segmentos suburbanos de grandes y pequeñas áreas metropolitanas, los datos indican que marcadas diferencias entre católicos y protestantes se encuentran todavía en las ciudades centrales, sin embargo, las diferencias de fertilidad entre los dos grupos religiosos tienden a desaparecer entre los dos grupos suburbanos. La convergencia en los patrones de fertilidad en áreas suburbanas es debido a efectos combinados de alta fertilidad entre los protestanies residiendo en los suburbios cuando se compara con la de los protestantes de la ciudad central, mientras los católicos suburbanos tienden a tener menosninos que los que vivenen la ciudad. El resultado neto es la convergencia en la fertilidad suburbana.SummaryThe purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which suburbanization has influenced the traditional fertility differences observed between Catholics and Protestants. It is hypothesized that suburbanization has served to decrease religious differences in fertility, since in the more advanced stages of urbanism, that is, suburbanization, the Catholic population is likely to adopt the fertility patterns of the larger and more secularized society. Attention is focused on two objectives: (1) to examine selected aspects of fertility for Catholic8 and Protestants living in metropolitan areas and (2) to analyze religious differentials in fertility among residents in different parts of the metropolitan community.The data, consisting of a sample of households in six metropolitan areas in three population size classes, supported the general findings pertaining to religious differences in fertility that have been reported in the literature. Catholics had larger families, shorter average spacing between children, and longer fertility spans when compared to Protestants, even when a number of control variables were employed. Examining fertility differences between Catholics and Protestants in central city and suburban segments of large and small metropolitan areas, we found that the data indicated that marked Catholic-Protestant differences are still found in central cities. However, fertility differences between the two religious groups tended largely to disappear among suburban residents. The convergence in the fertility patterns of suburbanites is due to combined effects of higher fertility among Protestant suburban residents when compared to central city Protestants and the tendency of suburban Catholics to have fewer children than those who live in the city. The net result is convergence in suburban fertility.

Gender Equality in Sweden: Are the Religious More Patriarchal?

We focus in this article on contexts within which religiosity (the intensity of religious commitment) reinforces more patriarchal family values and those in which it does not, and perhaps even strengthens egalitarian family values. Using data for 1999 and 2003 from the Swedish longitudinal study, Young Adult Panel Survey, we examine the relationship between religiosity and several measures of attitudes and behaviors related to gender equality in the public and private spheres. We find for most religious denominations, greater religiosity is linked with more patriarchal views about the balance of men’s and women’s roles in the home. Among members of the Church of Sweden (formerly the Swedish State Church), however, this is not the case. No differences by religiosity were found in attitudes for gender equality in the public sphere of work.

The historical trajectory of the black family: Ethnic differences in leaving home over the twentieth century

This article examines the historical trajectory of the Black family by documenting changes in leaving home among race and ethnic groups in the United States over the course of the twentieth century. The analysis uses data from the National Survey of Families and Households, a retrospective study of 13,008 US adults interviewed in 1987/88 about their past and current family experiences. A competing risks, proportional hazards statistical analysis allows an evaluation of the changing probabilities of leaving home by a given route (e.g., marriage, school, military). The article contrasts the effects of being Black, Hispanic, or non-Hispanic White on leaving home, distinguishing patterns early in the twentieth century (World War II or earlier) from those current during two periods later in the century (the baby boom years, Vietnam and after). There were major racial changes in ages at leaving home and in the routes taken out of the home. Trend data show convergences between White nonHispanics and Hispanics bu...

The marshall sklare memorial lecture

Introduction I am honored by the opportunity to present the Marshall Sklare Memorial Lecture for the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry and the Association for Jewish Studies and to join a distinguished group of previous awardees. I am grateful to the selection committee and for the continuing support of colleagues and researchers in the field. I first encountered Marshall in the 1950s when I was an

Theoretical issues in the sociology of contemporary jewries: comments on “what is conceptually special about a sociology of jewry”

Theoretical and methodological issues associated with the sociological study of Jewry have rarely been articulated and almost never addressed systematically. To be sure, there are selected theories about Jews and their communities and an increasing number of research studies using diverse methodological strategies to investigate selected sociological aspects of Jews in various places and times. All too often the theories available and the empirical research carried out are not integrated or woven together methodologically. We lack conceptual frameworks, theoretical maps, to fit the various pieces together, to locate the particular within the general, or to know what is missing from our sociological analyses of Jewry. Hence, the sociological study of Jews in modern society has been the accident of person and subject: a topic is interesting, a sociologist is interested, so a particular research issue is pursued. There is little logic to the choice, no organized or sustained research focus, little coordination and cumulation of effort. As an intellectual, scholarly, and academic enterprise, the sociological study of Jewry has been the stepchild both of Jewish studies and the social sciences (see Goldscheider and Zuckerman 1984b). In the past decade or so there has been an avalanche of studies on Jews in various communities, within different societies, that is unprecedented in history (see the reviews in Sklare 1982; Goldscheider and Zuckerman 1984a; Heilman 1982; Cohen et al. 1984). Although attempts to deal with research issues--for example, in selected areas of American community studies--have been made, there has been no comparable attempt to clarify the theoretical and conceptual issues that should guide empirical research. Hence, the goals set out by Samuel Klausner focusing on what is con-