Does type of conjugal union matter in the labor market? Evidence from a Caribbean economy

Review of Black Political Economy

Volumn 28, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 24-27

  Coppin, Addington ^a  

^a OAKLAND UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 26444551273     PISSN: 00346446     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. See Sanders Korenman and David Neumark, "Does Marriage Really Make Men More Productive?" Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1991), pp. 282-307.
2. They are more prevalent and longer in duration than in most other regions of the world, where cohabiting relationships are often short-term, and are frequently perceived as "trial marriages." According to Larry Bumpass and James Sweet, the median length of cohabitation in the U.S. is one year. See Larry Bumpass and James Sweet, "The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage," Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 53, No. 4 (1991), pp. 913-927.
3. For a perspective on the different union types in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, see George Roberts and Sonja Sinclair, Women in Jamaica: Patterns of Reproduction and Family (Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1978).
4. th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1997), p. 161.
5. This seems plausible since removing the Indian population segment from the present data sample pushes the proportion for the predominantly Afro-Trinidadian segment of the adult population cohabiting closer to 35 percent.
6. Thomas Simey interpreted the available evidence as showing the common-law relationship to be largely a feature of the early years of adulthood, either dissolving or being converted to a legal marriage. See Thomas Simey, Welfare and Planning in the West Indies (Oxford: Clarendon, 1946), p. 82.
7. Michael G. Smith generally agreed with Simey, observing that marriage was the appropriate form of cohabitation for women in their 40s, with few remaining in consensual cohabitation beyond their 54th year. See Michael G. Smith, West Indian Family Structure (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1962), p. 147.
8. See Fernando Henriques, Family and Colour in Jamaica (London: Macgibbon and Kee, 1953)
9. and M. Herskovits and F. Herskovits, Trinidad Village (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1947).
10. This observation was also made by G. E. Cumper, "Household and Occupation in Barbados," Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1961), pp. 386-419.
11. See Dom Basil Matthews, Crisis of the West Indian Family: A Sample Study (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1952), p. 51. He also pointed to the importance of social class in the determination of union type: in urban centers, he found the common-law union to be "practically non-existent in the upper middle and upper classes" (p. 56).
12. Smith also determined that there is no sociological distinction between marriage and common-law marriage. See Raymond T. Smith, The Negro Family in British Guiana: Family Structure and Social Status in the Villages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956), p. 97.
13. See Edith Clarke, My Mother who Fathered me (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957), at pp. 27-28, 84, and 109.
14. See William Goode, "Illegitimacy in Caribbean Social Structure," American Sociological Review, Vol. 25, No. 1 (1960), p. 29;
15. and Judith Blake, Family Structure in Jamaica: The Social Context of Reproduction (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), p. 162. Goode maintained that there was a general absence of punishments for entering CLUs, and of rewards for legal marriage in the Caribbean. Citing economic need and the presence of children as the main reasons for most CLUs, Blake claimed that both men and women in Caribbean society preferred marriage - men for the better care that was forthcoming to the man and the home in legal marriage, and women for the fact that men "recognized" few obligations in common-law unions (p. 162).
16. See Hyman Rodman, Lower Class Families: Culture of Poverty in Negro Trinidad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 62-65;
17. but see also Mariam Slater, The Caribbean Family: Legitimacy in Martinique (New York: St. Martins, 1977), p. 243, for an opinion contrary to this. Rodman explained the dissonance between beliefs and behavior by claiming that the lower class "stretched" the general values of society to help them adjust to their deprived economic circumstances (p. 195).
18. Rodman, Lower Class Families, p. 65.
19. See Simey, Welfare and Planning, p. 87;
20. and Smith, Negro Family in British Guiana, pp. 37 and 138.
21. This difference is, however, not all that surprising. Given women's greater likelihood of exiting the labor market for reasons of family formation, employers are reluctant to invest in women's training experiences to the same degree that they are willing to invest in men's training. Women are thus wont to acquire training experiences at their own expense, which are, for the most part, undertaken at formal training institutes.
22. See Otis Duncan and Beverly Duncan, "A Methodological Analysis of Segregation Indices," American Sociological Review, Vol. 20 (1955), pp. 210-217.
23. A similar type of analysis performed across the gender divide shows that 31.3 percent of either men or women in CLUs would have to change jobs to eliminate occupational segregation by gender; whereas 36.8 percent of men or women among the married segment of the work force would need to change jobs to eliminate occupational segregation. In other words, there is more sex segregation of occupations among married than among CLU workers.
24. Note that the average number of children is higher in households headed by males in CLUs than in households headed by married men.
25. Some of these men might well have left legal marriages and formed CLUs, without their minor children accompanying them into the new relationships. Such a phenomenon would, of course, result in an increase in female-headed households. While not offering a direct answer to this matter, the discussion by Simey, Welfare and Planning, of how CLUs transition either via dissolution or conversion to legal marriage later in the life cycle might offer some useful insight.
26. See Lamanna and Riedmann, Marriages and Families, p. 161.
27. See Glenn Cain, "The Economic Analysis of Labor Market Discrimination: A Survey," in Orley Ashenfelter and Richard Layard (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, Vol. 1 (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1986), p. 753 for an argument which favors earnings over wage rates in such analyses.
28. This is, of course, speculative. Data contained in the CSSP on number of months worked during the past 12 months do, however, reveal averages of 10.1 and 9.5 months for married and CLU women respectively.
29. 5 (EXPERIENCE).
30. A further analysis of the data employed here yielded an 8:1 ratio of legal marriage to CLUs among Indians, but an approximately 2:1 ratio for the remainder of the population.
31. See Addington Coppin and Reed Olsen, "Earnings and Ethnicity in Trinidad & Tobago," Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (February 1998), pp. 116-134.