The Catholic Family

Marriage, Children, And Human Capital

William Sander

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000315103
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Considering the effects of a Catholic heritage on families as a whole and on individuals within families, William Sander looks at the patterns of marriage and intermarriage, divorce, and fertility. He then turns to human capital issues, in-eluding the effects of a Catholic background on academic achievement, earnings, employment, and health habits. Examining the effects of Catholic schooling, Sander takes into account the select nature of the Catholic school population and shows that Catholic high schools have a large negative effect on dropout rates but a positive effect on the test scores of African Americans and Hispanics.

1
Introduction

In The Catholic Myth Andrew Greeley, the noted Catholic sociologist, argues that Catholics are often misperceived in the United States. Greeley, probably more so than any other scholar, has contributed greatly in correcting myths about Catholics. He does so by analyzing large data sets on Catholic households. This book is written in the same spirit. Several national data sets are used to estimate the effects of a Catholic upbringing on decisions regarding marriage, fertility, and investments in human capital.

The book is not a comprehensive study of Catholic families. Instead, it is a study of several issues regarding Catholics that have been of particular interest to researchers. The first half of the book focuses on issues regarding marriage and fertility. These include the effects of a Catholic background on age at first marriage, the odds of marriage and divorce, the probability of intermarriage, and, as noted above, fertility.

The second half of the book focuses on human capital issues. Human capital refers to the productive abilities of individuals in the economy. It is acquired through such activities as formal education, work experience, and health habits. Most research indicates that human capital is of increasing importance in the economy (e.g., Becker, 1980). Those with more human capital have higher earnings and better jobs than those with less human capital.

The human capital issues that are explored include the effects of a Catholic heritage and Catholic schooling on academic achievement, employment, and earnings. Also, the relationship between a Catholic upbringing and selected health habits (smoking, abusing alcohol) is the focus of one chapter.

A more detailed overview of the chapters of the book and selected key findings follows. In Chapter 2 the relationship between a Catholic heritage and marriage is examined. In particular, the effect of a Catholic upbringing on (1) age at first marriage, (2) the odds of having never married, and (3) the likelihood of divorce is explored. Previous studies show that Catholics have tended to marry at a later age and have been more likely to have never married. Most studies also show that Catholics have been less likely to dissolve their marriages. New findings in this chapter include a Catholic upbringing having a declining effect on the age at first marriage for women over time and no effect on the divorce rate of younger Catholics.

Chapter 3 focuses on interfaith marriages by Catholics. One issue that receives particular attention is how interfaith marriages are measured. One of the important findings in this chapter is that if religious upbringing is used to measure mixed marriages, the rate for Catholics is relatively high—about one in two marriages. If r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Catholicism and Marriage in the United States
• 3 Catholicism and Intermarriage in the United States
• 4 Catholicism and Fertility
• 5 The Effects of Ethnicity and Religion on Educational Attainment
• 6 Catholic Schools, Dropout Rates, and Educational Attainment
• 7 Catholic High Schools and Test Scores
• 8 The Effects of Catholicism on Earnings and Employment
• 9 Catholics, Alcohol, and Tobacco
• 10 Conclusion
• About the Book and Author
• Index