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The deinstitutionalization of marriage suggests more support for divorce and the forgoing of marriage. In this study, we examine attitudes toward both marriage and divorce in the context of having children and how they coincide with each other, creating a new typology of attitudes. Based on a national probability sample of 2,789 adults from the American Marriage Survey conducted in 2021, we find that just over half (55%) of people express transformative deinstitutionalization attitudes, in which they support divorce as well as forgoing marriage, while the next largest group (22%) hold divorce deinstitutionalization attitudes, in which they support divorce but also encourage marriage when children are involved. Findings show that women, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and pansexual individuals, and those who are cohabiting or divorced are more likely to hold transformative deinstitutionalization attitudes compared to pro-institutionalization attitudes, which support marriage and oppose divorce when children are involved. Meanwhile, older individuals, those who attend religious services more frequently, and those who identify as more politically conservative are less likely to hold any form of deinstitutionalization attitudes. Interestingly, education and parenthood have no impact on this set of attitudes. Given trends that show decreases in marriage and increases in LGBT identification, there may be further movement toward the disconnection of marriage and children.
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Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage, Polyamorous Marriage, and Conventional Marriage Ideals Among College Students in the Southeastern United States
This study examines the idea that attitudes toward marriage are liberalizing in the US in the face of federal recognition of same-sex marriage legislation by examining attitudes toward conventional marriage ideals, same-sex marriage, and polyamorous marriage. It draws on a sample of liberal arts college students (n = 330) in the southeastern United States as a representation of a cohort more flexible to change and greater social tolerance. Findings indicate shifts away from conventional marriage and toward marriage as more inclusive of same-sex couples. At the same time, less than half support polyamorous marriage. Unsurprisingly, religious students are more likely to support conventional marriage ideals and less likely to support same-sex marriage and students with conservative political ideology are less likely to support same-sex marriage or polyamorous marriage. In particular, the negative impact of political ideology on these attitudes is stronger for men and straight students. Women are more likely than men to support same-sex marriage. LGBQ students are less likely to support conventional views of marriage and more likely to support polyamorous marriage than heterosexual students. While college students today have entered adulthood in the age of marriage equality, and are accepting of same-sex unions, students indicate more mixed feelings about what marriage encompasses, the value of marriage, and whether to support polyamorous marriage.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1850239
- PAR ID:
- 10339106
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Sexuality & Culture
- ISSN:
- 1095-5143
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract IntroductionRecent research shows an increase in polyamory and acceptance of polyamorous relationships. However, there is still limited research on broader attitudes toward monogamy and polyamory, particularly regarding legal rights and with a national sample. This study examines the impact of cohort, sexual orientation, and contact with polyamorists on attitudes toward monogamy and polyamorous legal rights. This research has the potential to bring more attention to polyamorous relationships, disrupt heteronormative views of relationships, and consider legal rights for those in relationships involving more than two people. MethodsWe use data from a sample of 2665 adults from the 2021 American Marriage Survey, a national survey focused on attitudes toward marriage post-marriage equality, to consider the relationship between cohort, sexual orientation, contact, and attitudes toward mononormativity and polyamory. ResultsOverall, there is support for the idea that monogamy is the norm while people are generally not supportive of granting legal rights for polyamorous relationships. Younger cohorts, LGBQ individuals, and those who know a polyamorous person are less likely to support mononormativity and more likely to support legal rights for polyamorous relationships. Furthermore, contact has a stronger impact on attitudes of Millennials and LGBQ individuals. ConclusionWhile mononormativity remains the norm and polyamory is not widely supported, given patterns of greater acceptance among younger cohorts and LGBQ individuals, there is a good possibility that acceptance will increase over time. Policy ImplicationsThis research has the potential to bring more attention to polyamorous relationships, disrupt heteronormative views of relationships, and consider legal rights for those in relationships involving more than two people.more » « less
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Data from the General Social Survey indicate that higher-fertility individuals and their children are more conservative on “family values” issues, especially regarding abortion and same-sex marriage. This pattern implies that differential fertility has increased and will continue to increase public support for conservative policies on these issues. The association of family size with conservatism is specific to traditional-family issues and can be attributed in large part to the greater religiosity and lower educational attainment of individuals from larger families. Over the 2004 to 2018 period, opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion was 3 to 4 percentage points more prevalent than it would have been were traditional-family conservatism independent of family size in the current generation. For same-sex marriage, evolutionary forces have grown in relative importance as society as a whole has liberalized. As of 2018, differential fertility raised the number of US adults opposed to same-sex marriage by 17%, from 46.9 million to 54.8 million.more » « less
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Abstract Scholars disagree as to whether Americans’ attitudes toward local issues are structured ideologically and whether these are related to national policy ideology. We use two surveys of American adults to assess whether and to what extent Americans' local policy attitudes exhibit a similar structure as do national policy attitudes. We find that items asking about local policy are just as likely to reflect a latent dimension of policy preferences as those asking about national policy. Additionally, when local and national items are scaled separately, those scales are highly correlated. Our findings indicate that attitudes toward many local issues are aligned with national ideology. A smaller subset of attitudes about local issues appears distinctively local and possibly structured by non-ideological cleavages.more » « less
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Despite increased calls for the need for more diverse engineers and significant efforts to “move the needle,” the composition of students, especially women, earning bachelor’s degrees in engineering has not significantly changed over the past three decades. Prior research by Klotz and colleagues (2014) showed that sustainability as a topic in engineering education is a potentially positive way to increase women’s interest in STEM at the transition from high school to college. Additionally, sustainability has increasingly become a more prevalent topic in engineering as the need for global solutions that address the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainability have become more pressing. However, few studies have examined students’ sustainability related career for upper-level engineering students. This time point is a critical one as students are transitioning from college to industry or other careers where they may be positioned to solve some of these pressing problems. In this work, we answer the question, “What differences exist between men and women’s attitudes about sustainability in upper-level engineering courses?” in order to better understand how sustainability topics may promote women’s interest in and desire to address these needs in their future careers. We used pilot data from the CLIMATE survey given to 228 junior and senior civil, environmental, and mechanical engineering students at a large East Coast research institution. This survey included questions about students’ career goals, college experiences, beliefs about engineering, and demographic information. The students surveyed included 62 third-year students, 96 fourth-year students, 29 fifth-year students, and one sixth-year student. In order to compare our results of upper-level students’ attitudes about sustainability, we asked the same questions as the previous study focused on first-year engineering students, “Which of these topics, if any, do you hope to directly address in your career?” The list of topics included energy (supply or demand), climate change, environmental degradation, water supply, terrorism and war, opportunities for future generations, food availability, disease, poverty and distribution of resources, and opportunities for women and/or minorities. As the answer to this question was binary, either “Yes,” or “No,” Pearson’s Chi-squared test with Yates’ continuity correction was performed on each topic for this question, comparing men and women’s answers. We found that women are significantly more likely to want to address water supply, food availability, and opportunities for woman and/or minorities in their careers than their male peers. Conversely, men were significantly more likely to want to address energy and terrorism and war in their careers than their female peers. Our results begin to help us understand the particular differences that men and women, even far along in their undergraduate engineering careers, may have in their desire to address certain sustainability outcomes in their careers. This work begins to let us understand certain topics and pathways that may support women in engineering as well as provides comparisons to prior work on early career undergraduate students. Our future work will include looking at particular student experiences in and out of the classroom to understand how these sustainability outcome expectations develop.more » « less
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-09960-y
