Less and later: an analysis of male nuptiality during the last 30 years in Spain

Abstract

Spaniards are getting married later and in smaller proportions. Gary Becker’s economic theory of the family and Oppenheimer’s theory of marriage timing try to explain these trends. The aim of this paper, focused on men’s nuptiality patterns, is to determine whether the hypotheses derived from such theories apply to the Spanish case. To this end, the Spanish Labour Force Survey is used, and the method of artificial cohorts and logistic regression are applied. The findings show that unemployment, fixed-term contracts, the cost of access to the housing market and women’s absolute rate of employment are negatively related to the likelihood of getting married. From these results, a discussion on how Spanish
society has handled the socio-economic changes that have taken place in the last three decades with respect to the process of family formation is established.