Using data on marriages collected in most US states between 1970 and 1988, we show that the older men are when they marry, the more years senior to their brides they are, whether it is a first or higher-order marriage. While older men with more education marry down in age slightly more than less educated older men, the pattern of men marrying further down if they marry later holds strongly for all education groups. We consider several possible explanations for the tendency of men to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. While we have no direct measure of physical attractiveness, we argue that the most compelling interpretation is that men, more than women, evaluate potential spouses on the basis of appearance. Because the prevailing standard of beauty favors young women, the older men are when they marry, the less they find women their own age attractive relative to younger women, leading them to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. The consequence for women of men's preference for youth is more often that they remain unmarried than that they end up married to much older or less educated men. Copyright (c) 2009 The Population Council, Inc..

When Does Race Matter? Race, Sex, and Dating at an Elite University This paper unites quantitative and qualitative data from the College Social Life Survey (n = 732) to describe and explain patterns of racial homophily in undergraduate sexual/romantic relationships at an elite university, a closed social setting. It expands the literature on interracial romantic unions by comparing homophily in hookups (uncommitted sexual interactions), dates, and long-term relationships. Although this population embodies many characteristics associated with greater racial mixing (youth, education, status equality, geographical proximity, racial diversity, independence from family), racial homophily is still strongly evident. Variation in levels of homophily among relationship types and among racial groups is explained by differences in desired homophily, social network segregation, and participation in formal race-based student organizations. Black students are particularly socially isolated.This paper expands the literature on interracial romantic unions to include hookups, a form of uncommitted and spontaneous sexual encounter that may include sexual intercourse, by comparing patterns of homophily in hookups to

Scholars have long been interested in exchange and matching (assortative mating) in romantic partner selection. But many analyses of exchange, particularly those that examine beauty and socioeconomic status, fail to control for partners’ tendency to match each other on these traits. Because desirable traits in mates are positively correlated between partners and within individuals, ignoring matching may exaggerate evidence of cross-trait beauty-status exchange. Moreover, many prior analyses assume a gendered exchange in which women trade beauty for men’s status, without testing whether men might use handsomeness to attract higher-status women. Nor have prior analyses fully investigated how the prevalence of beauty-status exchange varies between different types of couples. I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health Romantic Pair Sample, a large (N = 1,507), nationally representative probability sample of dating, cohabiting, and married couples, to investigate how often romantic partners exchange physical attractiveness and socioeconomic status, net of matching on these traits. I find that controlling for matching eliminates nearly all evidence of beauty-status exchange. The discussion focuses on the contexts in which beauty-status exchange is most likely and on implications these results have for market-based and sociobiological theories of partner selection.

In this article I evaluate the effect of physical attractiveness on young adults' sexual and romantic outcomes to reveal gender differences in acted preferences. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a probability sample of young adults (n = 14,276), I investigate gender differences in desired sexual partner accumulation, relationship status, and timing of sexual intercourse. I find gender differences in sexual and romantic strategies consistent with those predicted by the double standard of sexuality and evolutionary theory. Specifically, compared to men, women pursue more committed relationships, fewer sexual partners, and delayed sexual intercourse.

This article examines the association between occupational sex composition and housework, considering total housework time, time on male-typed and female-typed tasks, and the percent of total time spent on male and female tasks. Previous research examining male-and female-typed chores independent of total housework suggests that couples compensate for gender-atypical employment through gender-typical housework performance, but this analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households (1992-1994) and the American Time Use Survey (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) demonstrates that assuming a quadratic association and failing to contextualize gendered housework performance within total housework performance obscures the true relationship between occupation and housework. In fact, women and men in gender-atypical occupations perform a more gender-atypical combination of chores. The influence of gender deviance neutralization in the housework literature may overshadow alternative explanations and model specifications. In particular, by assuming a quadratic association, researchers may impose, rather than test, gender deviance neutralization.