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SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, MARITAL STATUS AND CHILDLESSNESS IN MEN AND WOMEN: AN ANALYSIS OF CENSUS DATA FROM SIX COUNTRIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2011

MARTIN FIEDER ,
SUSANNE HUBER  and
FRED L. BOOKSTEIN
MARTIN FIEDER
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria
SUSANNE HUBER
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria
FRED L. BOOKSTEIN
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
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Summary

This study compares the effects of two distinct forms of human capital – income and education – on marital status and childlessness separately by sex in six different countries. Nearly 10 million individual records on individuals aged 16 to 50 were used from censuses from Brazil, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, USA and Venezuela dating from 2000 or later, to analyse the relationship between education, income and marital status and childlessness in men and women. Regarding income, the findings for both outcome variables are strongly consistent across all six countries. Highest-income males and lower-income females have the highest proportion of ever-married and the lowest proportion of childlessness (using a proxy for childlessness: own children in the household or not). There is no corresponding consistency of findings as regards education either between the sexes or among the countries. To conclude, a lower percentage of low-income men are selected by females, because for women male status and resources provided by men are important criteria in mate selection. Therefore a higher proportion of low-income men remain unmarried and childless. Thus selection seems to play a role in modern societies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 43 , Issue 5 , September 2011 , pp. 619 - 635
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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