Temporal Consideration of the Marriage Effect

Abstract

Purpose: Marriage provides a source of social control away from crime in adulthood, with considerable empirical support from numerous studies elaborating on marriage within various contexts. The effect was initially identified at a time before the modern rise in divorce rates, the deferring of marriage in favor of less formal relationships like cohabitation, and an overall decline in marriage at all, suggesting the need to examine the effect in the context of changing social customs through time. Methods: The current study undertook meta-regression analyses to examine the temporal aspects of the marriage effect, and to demonstrate the importance of systematically studying chronological changes over time within the life course perspective. Results: While the results do not demonstrate statistically significant temporal changes, the current study expands the discussion of systematically studying chronological change through different methodological strategies. Conclusions: This study expands methodological and theoretical opportunities to consider the marriage effect and life course research.