Sarah Savage and Dr. Vaughn Call, Sociology
Rural communities are unique in that they have a limited number of eligible singles or “marriage pool” which restricts the choice of marriage partners. There is great importance in the number of potential partners in a marriage market because this number affects persons in the transition to their first marriage. In rural areas the population is low and the number of individuals in the marriage market is few, thus limiting the pool of possible marriage-partners. Additionally, there are few opportunities for employment in rural areas, so the number of individuals who are single and employed is likely to be slim. These two factors combine in rural areas to limit the number of potential partners. It follows that if one comes from a rural area with few prospective partners, his or her likelihood for marriage declines.
Additionally, assortative mating – the tendency for people to choose a marriage partner with similar characteristics as them – means that someone who comes from a rural background who has poor education or low socioeconomic status is likely to marry someone with similar characteristics. If individuals from rural areas choose to remain in their hometown to find a mate where the marriage market is more limited than urban areas, assortative mating is especially likely to occur. Thus, people with low education and low socioeconomic status are likely to marry each other. Together the small marriage market in rural communities and the tendency to marry someone with similar characteristics could combine to create a marriage or familial environment that is completely unique to rural communities.
Taking this information into consideration I realized that I needed to know how members of rural societies find possible marriage partners – do they stay in the community or do they leave the community? The difference between selecting a partner from a limited marriage pool versus relocating to find a larger marriage pool may be associated with differences in education, personal or marital satisfaction, socioeconomic status, or other familial circumstances. By gathering facts on how an individual living in a rural area goes about selecting a mate and then looking at their particular marital, familial and socioeconomic circumstances, I hoped to see how family formation circumstances may be associated with different individual and familial outcomes. I hypothesized that those who leave the local community to select a mate and return to a rural community will marry at an older age, get more education, have a higher income and have a higher marital and individual satisfaction than those who stay.
To gather the necessary data for this study, a survey was given to individuals living in rural communities throughout Utah. Twenty-four communities were randomly selected from a list of all of the rural communities within Utah. Once these twenty-four communities were selected, another random selection was made to choose the sample. The main included approximately 1800 residents in these communities. Our sample was quite homogenous, being predominantly married, white, Latter-day Saint individuals with between 12 and 14 years of schooling. The respondents of our survey were called on the telephone and the surveys were administered and entered directly into computers via a Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview program. Then the same survey in written format was mailed to the individuals who could not be contacted by telephone. In total ### surveys were received and the first 682 were analyzed for this paper.
When the data collection stage was complete, variables were compared to find correlations between circumstances and outcomes to determine if my hypothesis was supported by the data. The independent variable used was whether or not the respondent was living in a rural community when they first started dating their current spouse. The responses were coded into non-Utah areas, urban areas, non-rural areas which are not urban, and rural areas. The dependent variables used how long they dated before they got married, income level, the education levels of the respondent and their spouse, and their reported marital and personal happiness.
My hypothesis was supported in some aspects and unsupported in others. Overall, those who left the rural community to find a spouse did receive more education and have higher incomes than those who did not leave the rural community. This supported the first part of my hypothesis. However, higher income and education did not appear to have any association with the respondents’ marital or personal satisfaction (see Table 1). That finding did not support the second part of my hypothesis. While those who met their spouse while living in a rural community did average lower income and lower education for both themselves and their spouse, their marital satisfaction was no different from those who met their spouses in a non-rural or urban area. In fact, individual satisfaction was actually higher in our sample in individuals who met their spouse in rural areas. However, the individual satisfaction may not be a significant difference and more research should be done to see if that result is repeatable.
These results helped me understand more about the rural marriage market. I thought that remaining in a rural area to find a spouse would affect the quality of life and perhaps the family dynamics of the marriage. But based on this research it appears that this is not the case. More research could be done to analyze other outcomes to see if they are associated with rural marriage markets. Additionally, more studies can be done to see if these results are repeatable.
Through this study I learned how to take a hypothesis from start to finish. I gained experience in arranging and formatting a survey. I was able to practice using my SPSS and statistics skills. Overall I feel like I have learned how to manage my own research project and I experienced the process of conducting guided research with a mentor. This experience of doing mentored-research is invaluable for anyone wanting to do any kind of research in the future.
References
- Luo, Shanhong, Eva C. Klohnen. 2005. “Assortative Mating and Marital Quality in Newlyweds: A Couple-Centered Approach.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88: 304 -326.