论婚前财产约定制

婚前财产协议作为夫妻财产约定的重要方式也越来越受到人们的关注,婚前财产协议体现了现代人对婚姻生活的高度理性,不仅在一定程度上避免了以金钱、财产为筹码的功利性婚姻,而且也是解决今后婚姻、财产纠纷的重要法律依据。     

论无效婚姻

婚姻无效制度是结婚制度的重要组成部分,能够保障结婚条件和程序的执行,保护合法婚姻,维护了我国婚姻法的严肃性和权威性。本文从无效婚姻的概念及构成入手,分析了无效婚姻的法律后果,提出了无效婚姻的立法建议。     

Love,life, and “leftover ladies” in urban China: Staying modernly single in patriarchal traditions

The population in urban China has shown rising age at first marriage and declining marriage rates, especially among college educated professional women who are in their late 20s or their 30s. We investigate the determinants of marriage formation for urban women aged 27 or above who tend to be termed “leftover ladies”. We estimate a recursive mixed-equation model to describe correlated profiles of career, education and marriage. Conventional social norms on gender, especially patriarchy, still prevail. Factors that are not favorable for a conventionally wifely role reduce women's likelihood of marriage. In particular, we reveal a “marital college-discount” of college education. It reduces the probability of marriage by 2.88%–3.6% and a postgraduate degree further oppresses it by 8.4%–10.4%. Favorable characteristics such as facial attractiveness only raises the likelihood of marriage formation for non-college educated women, while pushing up non-marriage probabilities for women with at least college degrees.     

Migration,marriage and social mobility: Women in Sweden 1880–1900

We study the intergenerational social mobility of women by looking at how migration was associated with socioeconomic marriage mobility using complete-count census data for Sweden. The censuses 1880–1900 have been linked at the individual level, enabling us to follow almost 100,000 women from their parental home to their new marital household. Marriage market imbalances were not an important push factor for migration but we find a strong association between migration distance and marriage outcomes, both in terms of overall marriage probabilities and in terms of partner selection by SES. These results highlight the importance of migration for women's intergenerational social mobility during industrialization.     

Usury legislation,cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods1

This article uses testamentary evidence from Lincoln diocesan court between the 1570s and the 1690s to examine links between inheritance, a rise in money‐lending amongst single women, and an increase in the proportion of women that never married. Two trends emerge: first, more fathers after the 1570s chose to bequeath cash to their daughters; second, they were more likely to restrict access to this portion by age rather than marriage. Assisted by a softening of attitudes towards interest‐bearing lending, these changes offered some single women a measure of financial independence that may have impacted on their marriage decisions.     

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

Conclusion This preliminary investigation of earnings differences between men and women in a Caribbean country by the constitution of their marital union has sought to bring some contemporary evidence to bear on a long-asked question: to what extent does conjugal union status matter in Carribean society? More specifically, the article investigated this matter within the context of the Trinidad & Tobago labor market, and identified two types of conjugal unions: legal marriage and consensual cohabitation, generally referred to in the Carribean literature as “common law” unions.     

India’s Color Complex: One Day’s Worth of Matrimonials

Lighter skin complexions may function as a form of capital, particularly for women, in marriage markets. The existence of a preference for light skin for marital partners is an index of the presence of colorism or color bias in a given society. This paper reports on a detailed examination of marital advertisements that appeared in India’s Sunday Times on a single day in March 2013. It asks how often skin shade is mentioned in the advertisements placed among those seeking grooms and those seeking brides, how those mentions are distributed by the reported age of the prospective marital partner, and the type of language used to describe the individual’s complexion. The study finds that skin shade is described far more often in advertisements placed by prospective brides or their families than prospective grooms or their families, and, whenever complexion is mentioned, the possession of lighter skin shades.     

Women's labor force participation and marriage: The case of Korea

In this paper, we examine the relationship between marital status and female labor force participation in Korea, and argue that marriage remains a major obstacle to young Korean women's employment. We find that an average married woman is much less likely (by 40–60%) to participate in the labor force than a single woman in urban Korea. Further investigation into the participation patterns among married women reveals that labor force participation rate (LFPR) varies with husband's occupation and her own age. Lower LFPR among the young married women is explained by demand-side factors, while relatively higher LFPR among the middle-aged married women is mostly explained by the supply-side factors.     

The Western European marriage pattern and economic development

For several centuries before the First World War women's age at first marriage in the west of Europe was higher than in the east (and in the rest of the world). In their low mortality regimes Western Europeans chose lower fertility in part through a higher female age at marriage. This allowed women to increase their human capital both formally and informally in the years before child bearing so that more informed mothers brought up better educated offspring. The demographic pattern influenced the stock of human capital and directly contributed to Western Europe's development advantage. The predicted relations of this economic model of the household are tested with two datasets, one at the county level for England for the second half of the nineteenth century and the other at the national level for Europe 1870–1910.     

马克思主义婚恋观对“80后”的启示

"80后"作为中国标志性的新生代,其出身年代与生长环境造就了他们的独特性,其婚姻爱情观显示出新的特色。"80后"青年们的婚恋观在相当程度上折射出我国的社会现状。目前正是"80后"发展的鼎盛时期,关注他们的婚恋问题,也就是关注我们祖国未来的发展状况,如何正确看待和处理"80后"的婚恋问题不仅对他们自身的幸福发展有一定的指导作用而且对我国和谐社会的建立和可持续发展都具有重大意义。     

A model of intermarriage involving attribute exchange

The increasing pace of globalization has significantly affected our lives in many profound ways. One of the consequences of globalization is the rise of intermarriage, i.e., the marriage between couples of different nationalities or different social, economic, religious, or racial backgrounds. Since our understanding of intermarriage is limited, this paper attempts to shed lights on intermarriage by developing a formal model based on attribute exchange. After examining the motivation and micro and macro consequences of intermarriages, our model shows that different value systems regarding marital attributes among different groups drive individuals with attributes valued lower in their group to seek intermarriage. As a result, the essence of intermarriages is the movement of attributes from groups in which such attributes are relatively abundant to groups where the same attributes are relatively scarce. Thus, intermarriage makes individuals with attributes valued lower in their original groups better off. At the inter‐societal (or inter‐group) level, the equilibrium of intermarriage is determined by the relative scarcity of marital attributes in different groups (societies). In the long run, intermarriages converge different groups in terms of their value systems regarding marriage.     

Gender,ethnicity, and unequal opportunity in colonial Uganda: European influences,African realities,and the pitfalls of parish register data

The renaissance of African economic history in the past decade has opened up new research avenues for studying the long‐term social and economic development of Africa. A sensitive treatment of African realities in the evaluation of European colonial legacies and a critical stance towards the use of new sources and approaches is crucial. In this article, we engage with a recent article by Meier zu Selhausen and Weisdorf to show how selection biases in, and Eurocentric interpretations of, parish registers have provoked an overly optimistic account of European influences on the educational and occupational opportunities of African men and women. We confront their dataset, drawn from the marriage registers of the Anglican Cathedral in Kampala, with Uganda's 1991 census, and show that trends in the literacy and numeracy of men and women born in Kampala lagged half a century behind those who wedded in Namirembe Cathedral. We run a regression analysis showing that access to schooling during the colonial era was unequal along lines of gender and ethnicity. We foreground the role of Africans in the spread of education, and we argue that European influences were not just diffusive but also divisive, and that gender inequality was reconfigured rather than eliminated under colonial rule.     

Central Bank Behavior and Statutory Independence

This paper integrates the Taylor reaction function literature with the literature on central bank independence (CBI). The central bank??s policy reaction function describes its behaviors, which measures the practical CBI, as opposed to the legal CBI measured by CBI indices. By analyzing the relationship between various legal CBI indices and the central banks?? reactions to inflation for 18 OECD countries, we find that the difference of behaviors among central banks is consistent with the economic measure of independence, which measures how easy it is for the government to finance its deficits by direct access to credit from the central bank.     

Female salaries and careers in British banking, 1915–41

Women were first employed in large numbers by the British banking industry during the First World War, and were an essential part of the industry's labour force thereafter. During the interwar period, women were often confined to routine back office positions, and could not advance past the level of clerk. Evidence from Williams Deacon's Bank shows that the salaries of younger women were very similar to their male counterparts; however, an ever-widening gender pay gap emerged after about 5 years seniority. The main reasons for this pay gap were higher exit rates for women, largely due to marriage bars, and lower returns to seniority. Promotion restrictions, though ubiquitous, account for a relatively small proportion of the gender pay gap. Despite the pay gap, the marriage bar, and the lack of promotion opportunities, a sizable proportion of female clerks were very loyal to the Bank and remained for 10 or more years. This was due to the absence of better opportunities elsewhere in the labour market.     

Marriage and labor market discrimination in Japan

"Many Japanese firms have engaged in the practice of compulsory retirement upon a female employee's marriage. In 1966, this practice was ruled as being contrary to provisions in Japan's Civil Code. [The authors] have specified and estimated a model of the economic determinants of age at marriage in order to analyze the effect that this discrimination has had on nuptiality in Japan. [The] results indicate that on average, after accounting for an upward trend, women who married after the 1966 court decision married about one year younger than women who married before 1966." It is also found that age at marriage is influenced by several socioeconomic variables, including wife's wage and educational level, husband's income and educational level, and wife's family background. Data are from a 1975 survey of women aged 20-59 who were living in the Tokyo metropolitan area.     

The Shadow Economy in Transition Countries: Friend or Foe? A Policy Perspective

By treating the shadow economy as a distinct entity, rather than just a symptom of policy failures, we are able to examine its short-term and dynamic consequences for development. First, we construct measures of the size of the shadow economy in 25 transition countries for 1990–97. We find hysterisis suggesting that, once established, the shadow economy is hard to remove: a dollar decline (rise) in official GDP is attenuated by a shadow expansion (contraction) of 31 (25) cents. We then examine whether the shadow economy prevents, merely slows down, or actually promotes economic growth and competitiveness, and through what mechanisms. We also consider implications for policymaking.     

Do Foreign Firms Transfer Gender Norms in the Labour Market? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Closing the gender gaps in economic opportunities is crucial for boosting economic growth and the empowerment of women. In this paper, we study how foreign firms contribute in reducing gender disparities in the labour market by transferring the gender norms of their country of origin to the affiliates in the host countries. We use cross sectional data on foreign firms located in 19 Sub Saharan Africa countries in 2010 by UNIDO. We find that firms coming from more gender equal countries employ more female workers in their affiliates. This effect is more relevant for the highly skilled female workers.     

A colonial legacy of African gender inequality? Evidence from Christian Kampala, 1895–2011

The colonial legacy of African underdevelopment is widely debated but hard to document. In this article, occupational statistics from Protestant marriage registers of historical Kampala are used to investigate the hypothesis that African gender inequality and female disempowerment are rooted in colonial times. We find that the arrival of Europeans in Uganda ignited a century‐long transformation of Kampala involving a gender Kuznets curve. Men rapidly acquired literacy and quickly found their way into white‐collar (high‐status) employment in the wage economy built by the Europeans. Women took somewhat longer to obtain literacy and considerably longer to enter into white‐collar and waged work. This led to increased gender inequality during the first half of the colonial period. However, gender inequality gradually declined during the latter half of the colonial era, and after Uganda's independence in 1962 its level was not significantly different from that of pre‐colonial times. The data presented here also support Boserup's view that gender inequality was rooted in indigenous social norms: daughters of African men who worked in the traditional, informal economy were less well‐educated, less frequently employed in formal work, and more often subjected to marital gender inequality than daughters of men employed in the modernized, formal economy created by the Europeans.     

Female headship,feminization of poverty and welfare

Female-headed households are at greater risk of slipping into poverty than male-headed households. Indeed, sex and marital status of the head of household are the most important determinants of a family's poverty status in the US. Divorce, separation, death of a husband, and out-of-wedlock births can lead to female headship. Transfer payments, especially the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, are blamed for contributing to increased marital instability and out-of-wedlock births. The authors examined the role of welfare benefits in influencing female headship. Preliminary results using standard estimation procedures indicate that transfers do not significantly influence female headship. Standard estimation procedures are, however, erroneous because they ignore differences in propensities to establish mother-only households. Therefore, adjusting for differences in propensities to establish female-headed households, the level of welfare benefits is indeed an important factor in explaining the variation in the changes in the birth rates to unmarried women. The use of a weighted measure suggests that welfare benefits, by increasing female headship of women who otherwise have low propensities to be female heads, have played a significant role in the feminization of poverty.     

The Middle-Eastern marriage pattern? Malthusian dynamics in nineteenth-century Egypt

Malthus predicted that fertility rises with income and that people regulate fertility via regulating marriage. However, evidence on the Malthusian equilibrium has been mostly confined to Europe and East Asia. We employ Egypt's population censuses of 1848 and 1868 to provide the first evidence on the preindustrial Malthusian dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa. At the aggregate level, we document rural Egyptian women having a high fertility rate that is close to the Western European level, combined with low age at marriage and low celibacy rate, that are closer to the East Asian levels. This resulted in a uniquely high fertility regime that was probably offset by the high child mortality. Next, we provide individual-level evidence on the positive correlation between fertility and income (occupation). We find that the higher fertility of rural white-collar men is attributed to their marriage behaviour, and not to marital fertility. Specifically, white-collar men's higher polygyny explains 45 per cent of their fertility advantage, whereas their higher marriage rate and lower wife's age at marriage explains 55 per cent. Therefore, polygyny was an additional factor that led to a steeper income–fertility curve than in Western Europe by enabling the rural middle class to out-breed the poor.