Sander W
Department of Economics, DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60604.
Demography. 1993 Aug;30(3):373-84.
This study examines the effects of a Catholic background on age at first marriage, the odds of never marrying, and the odds of ever divorcing. Estimates using Catholic upbringing are compared with estimates using Catholic at the time of the survey. A case is made that if the latter measure of Catholicism is used, serious selection bias problems occur in some cases because this measure excludes defectors and includes converts. Further, it is shown that a Catholic upbringing generally has no effect on men's age at first marriage and has a positive effect on the age when women marry. It is also shown that older Baptist men are substantially more likely than Catholic men to experience a divorce. Older Catholic women are somewhat less likely to experience a divorce than non-Baptist Protestant women. There is no Catholic effect on the odds that younger men and women will divorce.
本研究考察了天主教背景对初婚年龄、终身未婚几率以及曾经离婚几率的影响。使用天主教成长背景得出的估计结果与使用调查时的天主教信仰得出的估计结果进行了比较。有人认为，如果采用后一种天主教信仰衡量标准，在某些情况下会出现严重的选择偏差问题，因为这种衡量标准排除了叛教者并纳入了改信者。此外，研究表明，天主教成长背景一般对男性初婚年龄没有影响，而对女性结婚年龄有积极影响。研究还表明，年龄较大的浸信会男性比天主教男性经历离婚的可能性要大得多。年龄较大的天主教女性比非浸信会新教女性经历离婚的可能性略小。天主教信仰对年轻男女离婚几率没有影响。
