Kara Joyner

The Ties That Bind: Principles of Cohesion in Cohabitation and Marriage

A vast literature addresses the correlates of marital stability, but little is known about what unites cohabiting partners over time. Although a specialized division of labor might increase the benefits of marriage and strengthen ties between husband and wife, transactional considerations make specialization unattractive for cohabitors. Drawing from work on the emergence of commitment, we argue that cohabitors are more likely to remain together under conditions of equality. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we test these ideas by modeling the stability of married and longterm cohabiting unions in the United States. We find that married couples who adopt a more specialized division of labor are less likely to divorce, but the effect is modest. Among cohabitors, partners whose employment and earnings are increasingly similar face sharply reduced risks of breaking up, but the effect is asymmetric. Inequality is more disruptive when the female cohabitor earns more than her partner.

Interracial Relationships and the Transition to Adulthood

This study tracks and explains changing patterns of involvement in interracial sexual relationships during the transition to adulthood. Using a life course perspective that highlights the role of historical changes as well as age-graded changes in contexts and relationships, the authors hypothesize that involvement in interracial sexual relationships declines with increasing age among young adults. The analyses are based on some of the first nationally representative surveys to collect detailed information on sexual relationships: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the National Health and Social Life Survey. Findings from these surveys show that individuals are decreasingly likely to be in an interracial relationship between the ages of 18 and 35 years. They also suggest that the age decline in interracial involvement is a by-product of the transition to marriage in young adulthood and the increasing formation of interracial relationships in recent years. These findings have implications for future research on interracial relationships and family formation.

Do Race and Ethnicity Matter among Friends? Activities among Interracial, Interethnic, and Intraethnic Adolescent Friends

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (or Add Health), a nationally representative sample of adolescents in 1994–1995, we examine if and how friendship activities differ among interracial, interethnic, and interethnic friendships of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian youths. We find that best friends are more likely than higher-order friends to be from the same ethnic group and that best friends report more shared activities during the past week than do their higher-order friendship counterparts. Hence, we argue that shared activities is a useful indicator of friendship intimacy. In general, interracial friends report fewer shared activities than do intraracial friends, although this difference is strongest for white respondents. Moreover, we find that white, Asian, and Hispanic youths all report fewer activities with their black friends. We find little difference in friendship activities between interethnic and intraethnic friendships. Our findings suggest that, even when youths manage to break racial boundaries in friendship selection, these friendships face greater challenges than do those between individuals of the same race.

Size Matters The Influence of Adolescents’ Weight and Height on Dating and Sex

We examine the relationship between body size (specifically, weight and height) and dating and sexual activity using two large, nationally representative, longitudinal data sets. Our conceptual framework assumes that the utility an adolescent derives from dating and sexual activity is a function of the weight and height of his or her partner, and it predicts that heavier and shorter adolescents will be less likely to date and have sex. Empirical tests confirm that dating is less likely among heavier girls and boys and among shorter girls and boys. In adolescent dating, size clearly matters. For sexual activity, the results are less consistent.

THE QUALITY OF MALE FERTILITY DATA IN MAJOR U.S. SURVEYS

Researchers continue to question fathers’ willingness to report their biological children in surveys and the ability of surveys to adequately represent fathers. To address these concerns, this study evaluates the quality of men’s fertility data in the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97) and in the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Comparing fertility rates in each survey with population rates based on data from Vital Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, we document how the incomplete reporting of births in different surveys varies according to men’s characteristics, including their age, race, marital status, and birth cohort. In addition, we use Monte Carlo simulations based on the NSFG data to demonstrate how birth underreporting biases associations between early parenthood and its antecedents. We find that in the NSFG, roughly four out of five early births were reported; but in the NLSY79 and NLSY97, almost nine-tenths of early births were reported. In all three surveys, incomplete reporting was especially pronounced for nonmarital births. Our results suggest that the quality of male fertility data is strongly linked to survey design and that it has implications for models of early male fertility.

Trading Youth for Citizenship? The Spousal Age Gap in Cross-Border Marriages

Prior studies concerning patterns of intermarriage among immigrants have primarily focused on how factors such as race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and country of origin shape the choice of a spouse. Moreover, they have focused on intermarriage patterns among immigrants who are already in the US. Using the 2010-2014 American Community Survey (ACS), we focus on immigrants who were not US citizens at the time of their marriage and highlight patterns of status exchange, specifically, the exchange of youth for citizenship. Towards this end, we compare the age gap between spouses across four different groups of respondents: 1) non-citizens married to a citizen before or upon arrival to the US; 2) non-citizens married to a citizen after arrival to the US; 3) non-citizens married to a non-citizen before or upon arrival to the US; and 4) non-citizens married to a non-citizen after arrival in the US. We document the fact that a large fraction of marriages between citizens and non-citizens occurred before or upon arrival to the US. We also provide evidence that immigrants who migrate to the US after marrying a US citizen, particularly women, tend to be partnered with much older spouses, signaling an exchange of youth for citizenship.

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.

Rejecting the Refutation That Never Was: Reply to Meyer's (2010) Comments on Savin-Williams, Cohen, Joyner, and Rieger (2010)

Commenting on Savin-Williams, Cohen, Joyner, and Rieger (2010), Meyer (2010) dismissed their analytic approach as erroneous and submitted a lengthy defense of his minority-stress hypothesis. We reject Meyer’s refutation on several accounts, the primary one being that the study was not designed or presented as a‘‘test’’of his position. Despite considerable limitations with the minority-stress hypothesis—chief among them is insufficient, empirically validated research demonstrating the direct causal mechanism by which societal stigma is translated into negative mental health effects—we referenced it because of its intuitive, heuristic appeal and assumed truth that frequently results in its evocation as an explanation for mental health discrepancies among sexual orientation groups. It is regrettable that Meyer interpreted our call for scientific curiosity as a frontal attack on his hypothesized mechanism. In the spirit of scholarly inquiry, we believe it is justifiable—when based on empirical research—to offer alternative explanations to perceived truths when explaining complex behaviors. In this light, we interpreted the data from a possibly biologically mediated perspective rather than from the sociological-based minority-stress position.

Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences By Laura Carpenter and Everyone Is Not Doing It: Abstinence and Personal Identity By Jamie Mullaney

Laura Carpenter in Virginity Lost and Jamie Mullaney in Everyone Is NOT Doing It both draw from in-depth interviews, historical sources, popular culture and sociological theory to understand how individuals use sexuality as a means to construct and enact their social identities in contemporary society. While Carpenter focuses on loss of virginity, Mullaney considers abstinence from a variety of behaviors, including sex, driving, technology and substances.