Prelims

THE RETREAT FROM MARRIAGE AND PARENTHOOD

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH

Series Editor: Sampson Lee Blair

Previous Volumes:

• Anja-Kristin Abendroth

  Bielefeld University, Germany

• Anna-Lena Almqvist

  Mälardalen University, Sweden

• Clarence M. Batan

  University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

• Eli Buchbinder

  University of Haifa, Israel

• Yu-Hua Chen

  National Taiwan University, Taiwan

• Patricia Neff Claster

  Edinboro University, USA

• Teresa M. Cooney

  University of Colorado-Denver, USA

• Rosalina Pisco Costa

  University of Évora, Portugal

• Alda Britto da Motta

  Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

• Veronica L. Gregorio

  National University of Singapore, Singapore

• Olufemi Adeniyi Fawole

  University of Ilorin, Nigeria

• Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernandez

  University of Colima, Mexico

• Man-Yee Kan

  University of Oxford, UK

• Timothy J. Madigan

  Commonwealth University, USA

• Marion Müller

  University of Tuebingen, Germany

• Josip Obradović

  University of Zagreb, Croatia

• Christina L. Scott

  Whittier College, USA

• Ria Smit

  University of Johannesburg, South Africa

• Siri Wilder

  University of Texas – Dallas, USA

• Heidi Williams

  Virginia Tech, USA

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH - VOLUME 30

THE RETREAT FROM MARRIAGE AND PARENTHOOD: EXAMINING THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF DECLINING RATES

EDITED BY

SAMPSON LEE BLAIR

The State University of New York, Buffalo, USA

and

ZHENG MU

National University of Singapore, Singapore

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2025

Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Sampson Lee Blair and Zheng Mu.

Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83549-307-6 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-306-9 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-308-3 (Epub)

ISSN: 1530-3535 (Series)

Sampson Lee Blair is a Family Sociologist and Demographer at The State University of New York (Buffalo). He received his BS and MS degrees from Virginia Tech and his PhD from Penn State. Much of his research focuses upon parent–child relationships, with particular emphasis on child and adolescent development. In 2010, he received the Fulbright Scholar Award from the US Department of State, wherein he conducted research on parental involvement and children’s educational attainment in the Philippines. He has examined a wide variety of relationship dynamics within families. He has published 23 books, in addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, and has presented over 150 research papers at conferences in the United States and abroad, and has served as keynote speaker on numerous occasions. His recent research has focused upon marriage and fertility patterns in China. In 2022, he published Mate Selection in China: Causes and Consequences in the Search for a Spouse (with Timothy J. Madigan and Fang Fang). He has served as Chair of the Children and Youth research section of the American Sociological Association, as Senior Editor of Sociological Inquiry, Guest Editor of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, and on the editorial boards of Asian Women, Journal of Applied Youth Studies, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, Journal of Family Issues, Marriage and Family Review, Social Justice Research, Sociological Inquiry, International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, and Sociological Viewpoints. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of Tambara, at Ateneo de Davao University, in the Philippines. In 2023, he was re-elected as vice-president (North America) of the Research Committee on Youth (RC34), in the International Sociological Association. Since 2011, he has served as the Editor of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research. He is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Abroad, he has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Santo Tomas (Manila) and Xavier University (Ateneo de Cagayan), in the Philippines. In China, he has been a Visiting Professor at East China Normal University (华东师范大学), Qingdao University (青岛大学), Shanghai International Studies University (上海外国语大学), and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (上海财经大学). In 2020, he was initiated into the NCFR Legacy Circle of the National Council on Family Relations. In 2021, he received the Distinguished Career Service Award from the American Sociological Association’s research section on Children and Youth. (ORCID: 0000-0001-5039-7139)

Zheng Mu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore. Her ongoing research projects study how internal migration, ethnic identification, interactions between gender and intergenerational inequality, and interactions between ideational and socioeconomic contexts shape individuals’ time use patterns, family experiences, and well-being in China and Singapore (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2664-4106).

Sarah Adeyinka-Skold is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She earned her Sociology Doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines how the processes of finding romantic partners reproduce racial and gender inequality in the United States. She is primarily interested in exploring Black women’s experiences of dating and relationships. Her work has been published in various academic forums and featured on other platforms such as Philadelphia Inquirer, Elle, Women’s Health, and Vox. She has also been a featured guest on Voices of Africa, The Laverne Cox Show, and Therapy for Black Girls. She is additionally a licensed clinical social worker in three states: Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and California and uses a clinical lens to approach her research and teaching. After hours, she can be found playing with her three- and one-year-old and her husband, watching reality tv, or doomscrolling on X, formerly known as Twitter (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1883-0622).

Milad Bagi is a distinguished Demographer and Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran. He obtained his PhD in Demography from the University of Tehran in 2019. He also holds a Master’s degree in Social Science research and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science. During his PhD studies, he completed a research leave at the Centre for Demographic Studies, University Autonoma of Barcelona, Spain. He specializes in family and household demography, focusing on household dynamics, living arrangements, family structure, marriage and divorce, ethnic behaviors, and longitudinal studies. As an Educator at Bu-Ali Sina University, he teaches a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. His commitment to education and research has earned him several prestigious awards, including the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Distinguished Researcher (ORCID: 0000-0002-3690-2909).

Amy Blackstone’s teaching and research interests include the sociology of gender, work, food, and families. She has served as a consultant on workplace sexual harassment cases, and her research on this topic has been cited in the New York Times, USA Today, BuzzFeed, TIME, NBC News, and other outlets. Her book Childfree by Choice (Dutton, 2019) explores the history and growing movement of adults choosing to forgo parenthood. She has shared her research on the childfree choice in The Atlantic, Washington Post, Huffington Post, the Katie Show, and other venues. She is passionate about food and has taught the Sociology of Food at UMaine and in Italy (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8854-0970).

Christina Claudia, MA, ALMFT, is a Marriage and Family Therapist and Psychology Lecturer at Universitas Pelita Harapan, where she develops and teaches coursework in counseling and marriage and family psychology. She holds a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Wheaton College, where she received the Rech Award for Psychological Studies in 2023. She is currently a team member of the RELASI Research Lab at Universitas Pelita Harapan and a Research Affiliate of the Sexual and Gender Identity Institute at Wheaton College. Her research interests focus on marriage and parent–child relationships, particularly how relationships shape one’s identity, experiences, and decision-making (https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0307-4096).

Jody Clay-Warner is Meigs Professor of Sociology and Director of the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research at the University of Georgia. She is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of Social Psychology Quarterly and the Chair of the American Sociological Association’s section on Social Psychology. Her research examines individual and institutional responses to injustice, with a particular interest in criminal victimization and gendered violence. Her recent projects involve the utilization of network-based survey methods to measure the prevalence of human trafficking in sub-Saharan Africa and the use of laboratory experiments to identify the processes through which violence perpetuates women’s inequality. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and by the US Department of State. Her recent work has appeared in Social Science and Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science Research, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and Society and Mental Health (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5585-524X).

Morgan Cooley earned her PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2014 and MSW in Social Work in 2009 from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. She taught as an Assistant Professor between 2014 and 2018 at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in Social Work at Florida Atlantic University. She is a licensed Clinical Social Worker in the state of Florida with practice experience in couple and family therapy, working with child welfare-involved families, mental health and trauma, and also those who identify as LGBTQ+. Her research is greatly influenced by a background in both social work and family science and focuses on examining the relationships between child mental health, parenting or caregiving, family system functioning, and the context of being involved in the child welfare system. Specifically, her research is focused on better preparing and supporting foster families for fostering, identifying interventions and strategies to enhance the mental well-being of youth in foster care, understanding the impact of the child welfare system on families, and better preparing professionals and foster parents for caregiving or working within the child welfare system (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5564-9582).

Margaret Gough Courtney, PhD, is a Social Science Analyst in the Office of Policy Development and Research at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Previously, she was Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of La Verne, in La Verne, California. She received her MA in Statistics and PhD in Sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a BA in Social Welfare and Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include family formation, social inequality, social determinants of health, the impact of social welfare programs for individual outcomes, and quantitative methods. In other recent work, she has studied the impact of the Medicaid expansion on cohabitation and marriage and produced grant-funded, collaborative research on the relationships of social, economic, biological, and political factors with accelerated aging among older adults (ORCID: 0000-0003-1352-2222).

Yiqing Gan, PhD in Sociology, is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences, Fudan University. Her research focuses on family demography, marriage and fertility, as well as immigration and migration. (ORCID: 0000-0001-7140-596X).

Katharina Geppert is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Cornell University. Her research concentrates on family formation and its intersections with gender, immigration, and the criminal justice system. She is affiliated with the Cornell Population Center and the Center for the Study of Inequality (ORCID: 0009-0002-1465-7217).

Karen Benjamin Guzzo is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and serves as the Director of the Carolina Population Center. She is a family sociologist and demographer whose work considers trends, patterns, and variation in childbearing and union formation/stability using survey data. She is an expert on trends and differentials in US fertility preferences and fertility behaviors, such as delayed childbearing and childlessness, fertility intentions, nonmarital fertility, and childbearing across partnerships. Her work takes a reproductive-career approach, which grounds childbearing and family behaviors both in the larger life course and in relation to individuals’ past and future childbearing and family goals and behaviors. Her research has been federally funded and appeared in top family and demography journals, including Demography, the Journal of Mariage and Family, Population and Development Review, and Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9718-8465).

Sarah R. Hayford is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Population Research at Ohio State University. She studies childbearing, family formation, and reproductive health, primarily in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. She is interested in how people make plans about these behaviors and who is able to carry out their plans. Her recent and current research topics include the determinants of fertility intentions and desires in the United States, policy impacts on reproductive health access and outcomes in Ohio, the transition to adulthood in low- and middle-income countries, and how reproductive trajectories shape women’s long-term health and well-being in rural Mozambique. Her research has been funded by the US National Institutes of Health and by private foundations (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0000-7774).

Karel Karsten Himawan, PhD, is the Head of Department of the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Pelita Harapan, and the core researcher of RELASI Research Lab. He is also an Indonesian-licensed clinical psychologist. His research interests focus on the mental health issues related to singleness and marriage (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4778-7325).

Margareta Jelić is a Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. Her main areas of research include close relationships, intergroup relations, self-esteem, and prejudice reduction. She is the Head of the Doctoral Studies in Psychology at the University of Zagreb. She teaches various social psychology courses in the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate psychology study programs. She has participated in several domestic and international projects and is also active in professional work, both domestically and internationally (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2478-0756).

Austin Lee is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Boston University Society of Fellows. In 2023, she completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests are in extended kin networks, communal mothering practices, Black families, race, sexuality, and gender. Her overarching research agenda utilizes comparative qualitative research methods to explore the interdependent relationship between antiblackness and norms related to sexuality and gender, such as the essentiality of the nuclear family structure, gender conformity, and compulsory heterosexuality. Her research has received support from various organizations, including the National Science Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Immigration. Her working book manuscript, “Feeling Communal Motherhood: Black Women’s Navigations of Class, Gender, and Parental Status,” employs affect and Black feminist theory to investigate how social class and parental status shape women’s experiences with communal mothering. Drawing on interviews with 80 class-diverse women, she examines the permeation of gender norms within and class variation between Black kin networks. Through this work, she identifies the benefits of communal orientations toward family and care without obscuring how these practices can also perpetuate gender hierarchy (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1070-4047).

Ting Li is a Professor at the School of Population and Health and the Director of the Center for Family and Gender Studies at Renmin University of China. She holds a Bachelor degree in Probability and Statistics from Peking University, and a PhD in Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management from the University of Washington, Seattle. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Her research interests include family and demographic transition, population health and aging, and digital demography. Her works have appeared in top journals including Demography, PNAS, Population Studies, Social Science & Medicine, and Journal of Gerontology: Social Science (ORCID: 0000-0001-5397-4536).

Amanda Jayne Miller is a Professor of Sociology and Co-director of the Faculty Academy for Excellence and Innovation at the University of Indianapolis. Her work focuses on the intersections of family, gender, and social class through examining couples’ divisions of household labor, relationship progression, and fertility decisions. Furthermore, she examines best practices for supporting underrepresented students inside and outside of the college classroom. She and Sharon Sassler published the William J. Goode award-winning book Cohabitation Nation: Gender, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships (ORCID: 0009-0009-8377-5779).

Karmen Korda Orlović is PhD student in the Postgraduate Program in Preventive Sciences at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Zagreb and is currently working as a Health Associate/Junior Researcher at the Croatian Institute of Public Health (CIPH) in a Division for Epidemiology and Prevention of Noncommunicable Chronic Diseases. Her research focus includes mental health promotion and suicide prevention, as well as the appearance, use, and role of new technology, primarily social networks in science (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4950-7083).

Ioana Podarita will receive her BA in Psychology from Whittier College in spring of 2025. She is currently working under the advisement of Dr Christina Scott as a Research Assistant and was a Teaching Assistant for statistics. She looks forward to obtaining a PhD in Psychology and her research interests include feminist psychology, toxic masculinity, sexual assault, rape culture, and forensic psychology (ORCID: 0009-0005-2393-5911).

Wenjing Qin is a Master’s student in the Department of Sociology at Fudan University. Her research centers on youth attitudes and behaviors, with an emphasis on education, marriage, fertility, and the sociological implications of digital technologies. She aims to pursue a PhD in Sociology, focusing on these areas to advance both academic understanding and practical applications (ORCID: 0009-0001-0921-6882).

Sharon Sassler is a Professor of Public Policy and Sociology in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. A social demographer, her research examines factors shaping the activities of young adults and their life course transitions into school and work, relationships, and parenthood, and how these transitions vary by gender, race/ethnicity, and social class. Her published research explores how contemporary relationships contribute to growing levels of family inequality in the United States. Along with Amanda Jayne Miller, she is the author of Cohabitation Nation: Gender, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships, which was awarded the 2018 William J. Goode award from the American Sociological Association (ORCID: 0000-002-5287-8398).

Christina L. Scott earned her Doctorate in Social Psychology at Kansas State University, and she is currently a Professor of Psychology with Whittier College in Los Angeles. Her program of research has spanned a range of topics including attitudes about single mothers by choice and undergraduate sexual decision-making. A 2022–2023 Fulbright Scholar, she taught courses in American Studies for the University of Tokyo and Kyoritsu Women’s University, and she is currently a Fulbright Specialist. She has also taught internationally with the Semester at Sea program and Shanghai International Studies University (ORCID: 0009-0006-3075-7460).

Ziding Shen is a Doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia. She uses experimental social–psychological approaches to explore gender dynamics in parenthood under work–family settings. Her research also examines reactions to and effectiveness of solutions to gender violence (https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0907-1938).

Mengxin Shi is a PhD candidate in Journalism and Communication at the College of Media and International Culture of Zhejiang University. Her current research interests include social media use, media convergence, and human–computer interaction (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5178-1634).

Xinyu Shi is a Research Assistant in the Gender Studies Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she completed her Master’s degree in 2022. Her research interests include family and marriage, gender relations, and women’s employment (ORCID: 0009-0007-4254-6561).

Jing Song is an Associate Professor in the Gender Studies Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China and an Associate Researcher (by courtesy) at Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China. Her main research interests include gender and family in urbanization, migration, and modernization processes (ORCID: 0000-0003-3009-9075).

Matea Šoštarić, PhD, is a Research Assistant at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, working in the Clinical and Health Psychology Unit. Her research interests focus on the role of new technology in women’s reproductive health. She is currently enrolled in a Postgraduate Specialist Program in Clinical Psychology and has completed training as a cognitive behavioral therapist. In addition to her academic work, she provides psychological counseling and psychodiagnostics to clients. She also coordinates the “Reach for the STAR(s)” initiative, which organizes webinars for professionals in clinical psychology through the STAR Society (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0393-053X).

Brittany Stahnke has earned Master’s degrees in criminology and social work, later earning her Doctor of Social Work from Florida Atlantic University in 2020. After being at Newman University for three years, she is now at East Tennessee State University as an Assistant Professor in the Master of Social Work program. Along with being a Professor of Social Work, she is a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed clinical social worker in two states. She has been in the field of social work for over a decade and is passionate about helping others to heal and grow. Currently, she serves clients as a clinical director at a community mental health agency, specializing in mental health and diagnosis. Her past community work includes hospice, K-12 schools, homelessness, and adoptions. Her research includes marriage and childfree families, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and suicidality. She has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles, including news articles, book chapters, and her debut book, The Doubting Disease, as a professional memoir of her experience with OCD (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0287-3369).

Lucija Šutić is a PhD student in the Postgraduate Program in Preventive Sciences at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Zagreb and is currently working on a research project titled “Testing the 5C framework of positive youth development: traditional and digital mobile assessment.” She is also a member of the Laboratory for Prevention Research at the Department of Behavioral Disorders, Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Zagreb. Her research interests include positive youth development and peer and romantic relationships in adolescence and young adulthood. She is also interested in using the experience sampling method in her research (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4507-1924).

Chan Zhang is an Assistant Professor at the College of Media and International Culture at Zhejiang University, China. Her recent research interests include response quality in web surveys, questionnaire design, and cross-cultural survey designs. She received a PhD in Survey Methodology from the University of Michigan (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1035-5337).

Yu Zhao is a Professor at the College of Media and International Culture at Zhejiang University, China. Her research work focuses on new media communication and audiovisual communication (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0690-5911).

Early in 2024, the global population finally surpassed 8 billion. This moment sparked considerable debate among demographers and sociologists, as it again raised concerns about the growing population and the consequences, thereof. Such concerns were hardly new, however, as researchers in the 1960s and 1970s had expressed considerable alarm about increasing population size. On the global scale, it appeared that fertility rates were rising at a rapid rate, while mortality and morbidity rates were on the decline. Within accompanying increases in longevity, the general sentiment was that the world was on a reckless path of population growth which would only end with horrible consequences (e.g., starvation, global war). Of course, the feared explosion of population growth, while statistically possible, did not come to pass. It is ironic, to say the least, that many contemporary researchers are now expressing concerns that the global population may soon be headed in the opposite direction – shrinking, rather than increasing, due to massive shifts in fertility patterns.

The fears expressed in the 1960s and 1970s about rapid population growth were based upon prevailing marriage and fertility patterns of previous decades, wherein the majority of individuals generally saw marriage and childbearing as both desirable and necessary to their sense of accomplishment as adults. However, these same decades were also the time in which substantial variations in marriage and fertility began to transpire. Divorce, once regarded as almost a taboo thing to do, became increasingly viewed as acceptable, thus lending to increases in separation and divorce rates. Cohabitation, wherein adults could live together without being legally married to one another, was also once regarded as immoral and unacceptable by societal standards, quickly became not only permissible, but was eventually viewed as an integral part of a lasting relationship. And, of course, fertility rates also began to shift significantly during the 1960s and 1970s, as the “baby boom” period came to an end and the “baby bust” period, as made evident by sharp declines in fertility rates, began.

Family sociologists have long posited that, as a social institution, the family is subjected to all prevailing changes in society. As such, the structure of the family, along with its accompanying norms, does not remain static and unchanging. Instead, the family is a very dynamic entity which has long been regarded as the original social institution. William J. Goode, the prominent family researcher, proposed that the family will necessarily change as societies, themselves, change over time. He contended that, as societies modernize, populations will begin to shift toward living in urban areas, educational attainment will become a primary goal of young people, and geographic mobility (due to employment) will become increasingly the norm. All of these changing factors, Goode argued, will make the nuclear form of the family become the more “efficient” form, and that the extended family, while still present, will become less central to the lives of most individuals. His predictions about family and modernization can certainly be seen in the many changes in family structures and norms which have occurred around the globe over the past century. Seemingly, societal modernization has become synonymous with declines in marriage and fertility, while also being associated with increases in cohabitation, childlessness, and singlehood.

There are, of course, many variations in these patterns which need to be recognized. In regard to childbearing, most modernized nations have clearly experienced substantial declines in fertility. Many countries, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, have undergone dramatic decreases in their respective fertility rates, leading their governments to offer incentives to young couples to bear children. These incentives, along with other similar campaigns, have largely proved to be ineffective. In other countries, such as Nigeria, Uganda, and Angola, their respective fertility rates are among the highest in the world and are associated with massive population increases. Similarly, while many countries have experienced declines in the proportion of families headed by two parents, many have seen tremendous increases in the numbers of single parent families. In addition, many cohabiting couples (whose lifestyle choice was once regarded as highly individualistic) have children. Such cohabiting households, wherein there are two adults and children, are seemingly indistinguishable from traditional married-couple families.

There is little doubt that societal change and modernization have affected the structure and norms of the family, as posited by William J. Goode. However, our understanding of the many factors which have brought about these contemporary patterns is still limited and absolutely warrants further study. In the same vein, we also need to know more about how these evolving patterns are likely to shape family structures and norms, as time moves forward. In this volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, we have assembled a collection of researches whose works will advance our knowledge in those very areas.

The first part of the volume contains studies which examine the reasons, views, and values toward marriage. In “Challenges and Choices: Unveiling the Motivators Behind Delayed Marriage in Iran,” Milad Bagi examines the patterns of marriage postponement in Iran during the period from 1984 through 2022. The findings confirm that young adults are postponing marriage at substantial rates. Among the reasons for men doing so are those related to economic security and stability, such as finding a job, financial concerns, and housing. Women, on the other hand, were more likely to view finding the right partner, educational attainment, and conducive circumstances as their reasons for postponement. In “Understanding the Cognitive and Emotional Processes of Singles from the Perspective of Attachment Theory,” Lucija Šutić, Karmen Korda Orlović, Matea Šoštarić, and Margareta Jelić examine the role of attachment dimensions (avoidant and anxious) on maladaptive cognitive and emotional processes in single young adults. Fear of intimacy and low motivation for new relationships were found to be significantly associated with both avoidant and anxious attachment among college students. These complicating factors are regarded as contributing to the appeal of singlehood among young adults.

Yiqing Gan and Wenjing Qin pursue an examination of how Chinese individuals define the purpose of marriage in “Transforming Marriage Purpose in Contemporary China: The Role of Cohort and College Education.” Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey, they find that post-materialistic purposes of marriage have gained prominence among young adults, and that college education is associated with a less traditional view of marriage. Given the rise in educational attainment in China, it appears likely that marriage rates there will continue to decline. In “It’s About Survivors, Not Sex: Exploring Future Aspirations of Undergraduate Survivors of Sexual Assault,” Ioana Podarita and Christina L. Scott examine the impact of sexual violence upon the marriage aspirations of Gen Z. They find that the experience of sexual violence is associated with lower self-esteem and lower optimism toward marriage. Sexual violence was found to affect both females and males, alike, and raises concerns for better social support for victims of sexual assault.

The second part of the volume focuses upon the reasons, views, and values toward parenthood. In “Reasons, Views, and Values Toward Becoming a Parent: A Mixed-Method Examination,” Brittany Stahnke, Morgan Cooley, and Amy Blackstone examine the most prevalent reasons as to why individuals in their sample prompted them to become parents. Among the primary reasons were the love for children, a desire for a family, an interest in creating life, and a basic desire to parent. While such reasons proved to be quite influential, the findings suggest that many parents do not really put much thought into their choice. Karen Benjamin Guzzo and Sarah R. Hayford, in “Subjective Evaluations of Personal and Public Well-Being and Expected Future Childbearing,” assess how individuals’ expectations for having children are influenced by factors such as satisfaction with their own lives, their understanding of challenges facing young people, their beliefs about problems in their community, and their predictions about future Covid-19 outbreaks. Using data from the American Trends Panel, they find that individuals who are more dissatisfied with their own lives are less likely to expect to have children.

In “Understanding the Lowest-Low Fertility of Contemporary China: The Multidimensional Reproductive Beliefs Among Chinese Youth,” Ting Li explores the multifaceted nature of reproductive beliefs among young adults and attempts to provide a comprehensive explanation on China’s ultra-low fertility. Li finds that the birth aspirations of young adults are often affected by a wide array of factors, including those at the macro and micro levels. Many of the prevailing factors of previous generations, such as son preference, are slowly fading but remain salient influences upon fertility plans. Zheng Mu, Mengxin Shi, Yu Zhao, and Chan Zhang examine how marriage and fertility intentions are not necessarily as intertwined in China as previously thought. In “(De)Coupling of Marriage and Fertility Intentions: Evidence From a Survey of College Students in China,” they find that educational performance has a substantial bearing upon students’ marriage and fertility intentions. Women, in particular, are shown to view childbearing as a meaningful individual actualization and to not adhere to traditional standards concerning marriage and childbearing. In “‘I’ll Take One for the Team’: Individual- and Couple-Level Decisions About Sterilization,” Sharon Sassler, Amanda Jayne Miller, and Katharina Geppert examine the complicated decision-making which precedes the choice to be surgically sterilized. Not surprisingly, many more men had contemplated having a vasectomy, as compared to the number who actually did so. A variety of factors influenced such decisions, including the timing of marriage, monetary costs, and nervousness about the procedure. The role of a partner’s encouragement and prompting was also shown to have substantial bearing upon the choice to obtain a vasectomy, underscoring the manner in which such decisions are made both individually and jointly.

The chapters in the third part of the volume examine the diverse nature of marriage and parenthood. Karel Karsten Himawan and Christina Claudia examine the complicated nature of being unmarried in Indonesia. In “Single But Not Singular: Exploring the Diverse Realities of Singleness in Indonesia,” they find that marriage postponement is influenced by both situational and dispositional factors. With the traditional boundaries of Indonesian culture, social stigma is often attached to those remaining unmarried, yet these norms are beginning to change. Singleness, they find, should not be viewed as a homogeneous category. In “Navigating Romance: The Enduring Challenges of Black College-Educated Women,” Sarah Adeyinka-Skold and Austin Lee probe the barriers to relationship formation among heterosexual, never-married Black college-educated women, along with how they differ by age. For such women, a variety of structural and cultural barriers limit relationship opportunities, with these barriers being more acute for middle-aged women. Many of the women in their sample utilize different strategies to make singlehood more acceptable and enjoyable. Their work underscores the need to better understand the many factors which influence singlehood.

Margaret Gough Courtney examines the fluctuations in marriage and cohabitation in the United States, wherein the former is becoming increasingly more common. In “Trends in Cohabitation and Marriage By Experience of Economic Vulnerability in the United States,” she uses data from the Current Population Survey to estimate trends in cohabitation and marriage, along with how economic vulnerability and social welfare participation may be associated with these trends. Economic vulnerability is shown to be a salient predictor of cohabitation, yet the need to consider multiple measures of such are demonstrated. In “Moving Together or Living Apart: Cross-border Couples Between Hong Kong and Shenzhen Under the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Xinyu Shi and Jing Song examine how young cross-border couples decided to move together or live apart when the pandemic led to the closure of the border. Among women, individualistic desires, self-development, or relationship satisfaction were factors when couples decided to live apart. Among those who remained together, it was more frequently the woman who was forced to quit her job. Their findings indicate that gender and relationship dynamics are undergoing change within China. Finally, in “Gendered Employment Realities in Dual-Earner Couples: A Framework for Understanding the Differential Effects of Earning Levels for Evaluations of Mothers and Fathers,” Ziding Shen and Jody Clay-Warner propose that women’s retreat from parenthood may be associated with the disadvantage they face in parenting evaluations, relative to men, in dual-earner couples. They find that perceived conflict and devotion are positively associated with parenting evaluations, and that working women are regarded as experiencing more work–family conflict.

The valuable research provided by the authors in this volume both reveal many intriguing factors affecting the retreat from marriage and childbearing, around the globe, but also raise many additional questions which warrant further investigation. The declines in marriage and fertility rates, particularly in the global north, have generated considerable debate about the changing nature of the family as a social institution, and also raise concerns about population changes which may yield considerable impacts upon other social institutions. The central factor among all of these issues – change – is going to continue to affect marriage and fertility patterns around the world. We gratefully acknowledge and offer our most sincere appreciation to all of the contributing authors in this volume, along with the many reviewers and the helpful staff at Emerald Publishing. Thank you, one and all!

Sampson Lee Blair

Zheng Mu