The influence of women's work opportunities on marriage rates.
Several authors have argued that increased work opportunities for women have helped to produce a reduction in the average age at marriage in the United States. This paper tests this proposition on data for the 100 largest SMSA's in 1960. Using ordinary least-squares regression, we find that areas of relatively attractive female employment opportunities had relatively low proportions of women ever married in the age interval 22-24. Other variables significantly related to the proportion married in an SMSA are its sex ratio, percent Catholic, and number of inhabitants. A decline in the sex ratio and improvements in female employment opportunities appear to have been equally influential in producing declines in proportions married between 1960 and 1970.
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002410:Catholicism; D004651:Employment; D006801:Humans; D008393:Marriage; D008433:Mathematics; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012744:Sex Ratio; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population; D014930:Women