This is a proposal to study two central dimensions of social life in the United States today: 1) marriage and the marital process, including cohabitation and nonresidential unions; and 2) childbearing, involving both the bearing and rearing of children. Although we begin from an interest in behavioral aspects of marriage and childbearing, this research centers on the systems of attitudes, values, beliefs, preferences, and social norms underlying and providing motivations for marriage, cohabitation, childbearing, and childrearing. Whereas extensive research has been conducted concerning marriage and childbearing behavior, relatively little work has been done on the ideational phenomena underlying and motivating these behaviors. Our research plan focuses on the forces determining marriage and childbearing attitudes, values, beliefs, preferences, and perceptions of social norms among young adults. Our first goal is to examine how aspects of the parental family?including socioeconomic factors, the social organization of the parental family, parental religious affiliation and participation, and parental marital and childbearing experience?influence ideational phenomena of the children growing up in these parental families.
The second aim of our analysis is explication of the ways in which parental attitudes, values, beliefs, preferences, and perspections of social norms influence children's ideas. Our third goal shifts to the impact of children's own experiences with school, work, marriage, and childbearing on their ideas about marriage and childbearing. The empirical analyses will rely on three data sources that each include key measures from two generations: (1) the National Survey of Children (NSC); (2) the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH); and (3) the Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children (IPSPC). These three data sets each provides the essential ingredients for a study of the intergenerational determinants of ideational phenomena related to marriage and childbearing.
| Thornton, Arland; Binstock, Georgina; Young-DeMarco, Linda et al. (2016) Evaluating the measurement reliabilities and dimensionality of developmental idealism measures. Chin J Sociol 2:609-635 |
| Ghimire, Dirgha J; Axinn, William G; Smith-Greenaway, Emily (2015) Impact of the spread of mass education on married women's experience with domestic violence. Soc Sci Res 54:319-31 |
| West, Brady T; Ghimire, Dirgha; Axinn, William G (2015) Evaluating a Modular Design Approach to Collecting Survey Data Using Text Messages. Surv Res Methods 9:111-123 |
| Lai, Qing; Thornton, Arland (2015) The making of family values: developmental idealism in Gansu, China. Soc Sci Res 51:174-88 |
| Thornton, Arland; Pierotti, Rachael S; Young-DeMarco, Linda et al. (2014) Developmental Idealism and Cultural Models of the Family in Malawi. Popul Res Policy Rev 33:693-716 |
| Melegh, Attila; Thornton, Arland; Philipov, Dimiter et al. (2013) Perceptions of societal developmental hierarchies in Europe and beyond: A Bulgarian Perspective. Eur Sociol Rev 29:603-615 |
| Binstock, Georgina; Thornton, Arland; Abbasi-Shavazi, Mohammad J et al. (2013) Influences on the Knowledge and Beliefs of Ordinary People about Developmental Hierarchies. Int J Comp Sociol 54:325-344 |
| Thornton, Arland; Binstock, Georgina; Yount, Kathryn M et al. (2012) International fertility change: new data and insights from the developmental idealism framework. Demography 49:677-98 |
| Thornton, Arland; Ghimire, Dirgha J; Mitchell, Colter (2012) The measurement and prevalence of an ideational model of family and economic development in Nepal. Popul Stud (Camb) 66:329-45 |
| Abbasi-Shavazi, Mohammad Jalal; Askari-Nodoushan, Abbas (2012) Family Life and Developmental Idealism in Yazd, Iran. Demogr Res 26:207-238 |
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