Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, PO Box 90312, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
Demography. 2018 Dec;55(6):2321-2343. doi: 10.1007/s13524-018-0726-z.
Scholars have suggested that low-income parents avoid marriage because they have not met the so-called economic bar to marriage. The economic bar is multidimensional, referring to a bundle of financial achievements that determine whether couples feel ready to wed. Using the Building Strong Families data set of low-income parents (n = 4,444), we operationalized this qualitative concept into a seven-item index and examined whether couples who met the economic bar by achieving the majority of the items were more likely to marry than couples who did not. Meeting the bar was associated with a two-thirds increase in marriage likelihood. The bar was not positively associated with cohabitation, suggesting that it applies specifically to marriage. When we examined different definitions of the bar based on whether the mother, father, or both parents contributed items, all variants were associated with marriage, even if the bar was based on the mother's economic accomplishments alone. When mothers contributed to the economic bar, they reported significantly higher relationship quality. Our results reinforce the importance of the multidimensional economic bar for marriage entry, highlighting the role of maternal economic contributions in low-income relationships.
学者们认为，低收入父母避免结婚是因为他们没有达到所谓的结婚经济门槛。经济门槛是多维度的，指的是一系列决定夫妻是否准备结婚的财务成就。我们使用低收入父母的“建立稳固家庭”数据集（n=4444），将这一定性概念转化为一个由七个项目组成的指数，并研究了达到多数项目的夫妻是否比未达到这些项目的夫妻更有可能结婚。达到经济门槛与结婚可能性增加三分之二有关。该门槛与同居没有正相关关系，表明它专门适用于婚姻。当我们根据母亲、父亲或父母双方的贡献项目来检验门槛的不同定义时，所有变体都与婚姻有关，即使门槛仅基于母亲的经济成就。当母亲为经济门槛做出贡献时，她们报告的关系质量显著更高。我们的研究结果强化了多维经济门槛对婚姻的重要性，突出了母亲经济贡献在低收入关系中的作用。
