Data link roundup (week of June 14, 2013)

The week's top data analysis links...
This week's theme: June is generally the busiest month for weddings,* so let's talk about marriage.


DELAYED MARRIAGE

The report and website Knot Yet is a joint project of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and The Relate Institute. The analysis attempts to explain the benefits and costs of delayed marriage based on data from the Current Population Survey, American Community Survey, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and other sources.

Examples include:
Delayed marriage is associated with lower divorce rate.
Earlier marriage is associated with higher reported happiness.
Delayed marriage is associated with higher family earnings.
Earlier marriage is associated with lower rates of 20-something depression.


REBOUND MARRIAGE

After falling during the recession years, the number of marriages in the U.S. is up (2.118 million in 2011 compared with 2.096 million in 2010) and the rate of marriages per 1,000 population has stabilized, according to the latest data from CDC.

ASSORTATIVE MATING TO THE EXTREME?

We have evidence that people pair up with others of similar socio-economic and educational background.

Neal Caren, of Scatterplot, takes this theory a step further. Caren analyzed American Community Survey data and found that sociologists marry... other sociologists. (If they get married at all... and if their spouse has a college degree... But still, "both male and female sociology majors are 3.7 times more likely to be married to other sociology majors compared to a random major." According to Caren:

"what it really means is among the population of male sociologist who are married to a female with a college degree, 8% are married to someone who was a sociology major. This completely excludes the not currently married (40% of sociology majors of 25), and those folks married to someone without a college degrees (33% of married sociology majors)"

BEST CHART CARTOON OF THE WEEK

Source: Randy Glasbergen

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

6 things you need to know about the 2012 U.S. population estimates.

Delaying the wedding bells (stats on declining marriage rates and marriage differentials by socio-economic status)

Let the wedding bells ring! (Stats on marriage by month, by state, and trends in marriage and divorce)


*Note: August sometimes has more weddings than June, but August is a longer month...