caa a22 4500 465818390 CHVBK 20180323112128.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170327e19901101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF03029361 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF03029361 Bracher Michael Australian Family Project Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, ACT 2601, Canberra aut Explaining first marriage trends in Australia [Elektronische Daten] [Michael Bracher] As in other industrialized countries, marriage rates have fallen sharply in Australia over the last two decades. Most descriptions of Australian marriage trends date the beginning of the recent decline to the mid-1970s and suggest that marriage rates fell first among teenagers, next among people in their early twenties and, only lastly, among those in their late twenties. Most explanations invoke normative change as the primary determinant of the decline. This paper presents new estimates of Australian first marriage trends since the 1920s and then focuses on the recent period. Analysis of first marriage statistics shows that nuptiality decline actually began amongst the oldest potential marriers in the late 1960s, and then percolated down to the younger ages. An attempt to explain recent trends through Becker's economic theory of marriage proves unsuccessful. Nevertheless, time-series regression analyses indicate that over the last twenty years first marriage rates in Australia have followed major movements in economic factors, in particular employment status, and that neither normative change nor the economic rationality postulated by the economic theory of marriage needs to be invoked as the primary determinant of changing nuptiality. Springer Science+Business Media, 1990 Journal of the Australian Population Association Springer Netherlands 7/2(1990-11-01), 128-150 1443-2447 7:2<128 1990 7 12546 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03029361 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03029361 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Bracher Michael Australian Family Project Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, ACT 2601, Canberra aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Journal of the Australian Population Association Springer Netherlands 7/2(1990-11-01), 128-150 1443-2447 7:2<128 1990 7 12546 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer