Megan M Sweeney
Biographic Data
| ID | 77648 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Megan M Sweeney |
| GIVEN NAMES | Megan M |
| FAMILY NAME | Sweeney |
| SIGNATURE | SWEENEY M M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6482-7486 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1099 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Brutality and its aftermath: Autotheoretical Engagements with Violence
"Brutality and its aftermath":Autotheoretical Engagements with Violence Megan Sweeney (bio) discussing Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route (2008), Saidiya Hartman explains that the autobiographical dimension of her book enables her to explore her "own formation as a window onto social and historical processes, as an example of them."1 Hartman's description of her book offers a helpful frame for approaching three recent book…
Special Issue on Feminism and Capitalism
Priti Ramamurthy, Attiya Ahmad, Judith Gardiner, Bibiana Obler, Lisa Rofel, Megan Sweeney, Ashwini Tambe, Special Issue on Feminism and Capitalism, Feminist Studies, Vol. 47, No. 3, SPECIAL ISSUE: Feminism and Capitalism (2021), pp. 479-491
Global Intimacies: China and/in the Global South
Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 251 7 preface 8 In recent years, people all over the world have become ever more aware of being drawn into intimate—and unequal—relations with one another, whether through environmental crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, global economic commodity chains, violent conflicts, forced displacements , or political protests and social movements. This special issue features China’s so-called rising…
Divorce, Repartnering, and Stepfamilies: A Decade in Review
This article reviews key developments in the past decade of research on divorce, repartnering, and stepfamilies. Divorce rates are declining overall, but they remain high and have risen among people older than age 50. Remarriage rates have declined, but the overall proportion of marriages that are remarriages is rising. Transitions in parents' relationships continue to be associated with reduced child well-being, but shifting patterns of divorce …
Desire for Sterilization Reversal Among U.S. Females: Increasing Inequalities by Educational Level
Future research should consider how insurance coverage of all methods under the Affordable Care Act may affect use of sterilization and desire for reversal
Understanding Sterilization Regret in the United States: The Role of Relationship Context
Although one fourth of sterilized reproductive-aged women in the United States express a desire to have their sterilization procedures reversed, the pathways leading to sterilization regret remain insufficiently understood. Particularly little is known about how cohabitation affects the likelihood of sterilization regret. This study used data from the 2006 to 2010 National Survey of Family Growth to investigate how relationship context shapes wom…
Socioeconomic Standing and Variability in Marriage Timing in the Twentieth Century
This research draws on extensive data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to shed new light on change and variability in family life. I address two overarching questions. First, how did variability in marriage timing change over the course of the twentieth century? Second, did changes in the variability of marriage timing occur broadly across socioeconomic groups, or have they been limited to the t…
The perplexing links between contraceptive sterilization and (dis)advantage in ten low-fertility countries
This study investigated the association between contraceptive sterilization and socio-economic status (measured by educational attainment) in ten countries, using data from the 2006-10 National Survey of Family Growth and the 2004-10 Generations and Gender Surveys. The findings confirm that a long-standing association between socio-economic status and sterilization persists in the contemporary United States: female sterilization is associated wit…
The Growing Racial and Ethnic Divide in U.S. Marriage Patterns
The United States shows striking racial and ethnic differences in marriage patterns. Compared to both white and Hispanic women, black women marry later in life, are less likely to marry at all, and have higher rates of marital instability. Kelly Raley, Megan Sweeney, and Danielle Wondra begin by reviewing common explanations for these differences, which first gained momentum in the 1960s (though patterns of marital instability diverged earlier th…
Race, Ethnicity, and the Changing Context of Childbearing in the United States
In what ways do childbearing patterns in the contemporary United States vary for white, black, and Hispanic women? Why do these differences exist? Although completed family size is currently similar for white and black women, and only modestly larger for Hispanic women, we highlight persistent differences across groups with respect to the timing of childbearing, the relationship context of childbearing, and the extent to which births are intended…
Precarious Employment, Bad Jobs, Labor Unions, and Early Retirement
Results provide some support for hypotheses derived from theories of cumulative stratification, suggesting that earlier employment experiences should influence retirement outcomes indirectly through later-life characteristics. However, midlife employment experiences remain associated with earlier retirement, net of more temporally proximate correlates, highlighting the need for further theorization and empirical evaluation of the mechanisms throu…
The Association Between Retirement and Emotional Well-being: Does Prior Work-Family Conflict Matter
Retirement may come more as a relief than as a stressor for individuals previously experiencing high levels of work demands interfering with family life. However, particularly among women, retirement may not relieve the burdens of family life stressors
The Reproductive Context of Cohabitation in the United States: Recent Change and Variation in Contraceptive Use
Drawing on data from 2 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth ( N = 11,065), the current research addressed 2 overarching questions about the reproductive context of cohabitation in the United States. First, did patterns of contraceptive use among cohabitors change during the last 2 decades of the 20th century? Second, did patterns of contraceptive use among cohabiting women tend to vary by education or race/ethnicity? Results point to a g…
Remarriage and Stepfamilies: Strategic Sites for Family Scholarship in the 21st Century
This article reviews areas of advancement over the past decade in our understanding of remarriage and stepfamilies and suggests promising new directions for future work. Profound shifts in the demographic context of family life motivate central themes in recent scholarship on remarriage and stepfamilies, including the diversity and complexity of stepfamily structures and processes, the consequences of multiple partnerships for adults and children…
Explaining Race and Ethnic Variation in Marriage: Directions for Future Research
Stepfather Families and the Emotional Well-Being of Adolescents
Although approximately one-third of all children born in the United States are expected to spend some time living in a married or cohabiting stepfamily, our understanding of the implications of stepfamilies for the well-being of youth remains incomplete. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this research investigates adolescent depressive symptomatology and suicide ideation in stepfather families, paying careful a…
Work-Family Conflict and Retirement Preferences
Our analyses provide the first direct evidence of the role played by work-family conflict in the early stages of the retirement process, although we were not able to identify the sources of conflict underlying this relationship. Identifying the sources of this conflict and the psychological mechanisms linking work-family conflict to retirement preferences is an important task for future researchers
Can differential exposure to risk factors explain recent racial and ethnic variation in marital disruption
Special Reviewers
Premarital cohabitation and marital disruption among white, black, and Mexican American women
We use data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 4,547) to investigate racial and ethnic differences in risk factors for marital disruption, with a particular emphasis on premarital cohabitation. We find that the nature and strength of the estimated effects of several risk factors for disruption differ across groups. In particular, premarital cohabitation is positively associated with subsequent marital disruption among non-Hispani…
Placing patterns of economic assortative mating in context: A reply to Press (2004) and England (2004)
Racial House, Big House, Home: Contemporary Abolitionism in Toni Morrison's Paradise
The changing importance of white women's economic prospects for assortative mating
Given recent changes in the labor force participation and economic standing of women, we ask whether a woman's position in the labor market has become a more important determinant of her position in the marriage market. Unlike much prior research on trends over time in assortative mating, we take an individual-level approach to the analysis and rely on improved measures of labor market position, such as measuring wives' wages before marriage and …
Understanding Racial Differences in Marital Disruption: Recent Trends and Explanations
We use data from the Current Population Survey to investigate racial differences in recent patterns of marital disruption. Although a leveling in the trend of disruption has occurred for White women since 1980, our results suggest less stabilization in rates of disruption among Black women. We also observe significant differences by race in the effects of key compositional factors on the risk of marital disruption, including age at marriage, educ…
Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage
Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history analysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between the early baby-boom cohort (born between 1950 and 1954) a…
Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage
Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history analysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between the early baby-boom cohort (born between 1950 and 1954) a…
Remarriage and Stepfamilies: Strategic Sites for Family Scholarship in the 21st Century
This article reviews areas of advancement over the past decade in our understanding of remarriage and stepfamilies and suggests promising new directions for future work. Profound shifts in the demographic context of family life motivate central themes in recent scholarship on remarriage and stepfamilies, including the diversity and complexity of stepfamily structures and processes, the consequences of multiple partnerships for adults and children…
Divorce, Repartnering, and Stepfamilies: A Decade in Review
This article reviews key developments in the past decade of research on divorce, repartnering, and stepfamilies. Divorce rates are declining overall, but they remain high and have risen among people older than age 50. Remarriage rates have declined, but the overall proportion of marriages that are remarriages is rising. Transitions in parents' relationships continue to be associated with reduced child well-being, but shifting patterns of divorce …
Race, Ethnicity, and the Changing Context of Childbearing in the United States
In what ways do childbearing patterns in the contemporary United States vary for white, black, and Hispanic women? Why do these differences exist? Although completed family size is currently similar for white and black women, and only modestly larger for Hispanic women, we highlight persistent differences across groups with respect to the timing of childbearing, the relationship context of childbearing, and the extent to which births are intended…
The changing importance of white women's economic prospects for assortative mating
Given recent changes in the labor force participation and economic standing of women, we ask whether a woman's position in the labor market has become a more important determinant of her position in the marriage market. Unlike much prior research on trends over time in assortative mating, we take an individual-level approach to the analysis and rely on improved measures of labor market position, such as measuring wives' wages before marriage and …
Premarital cohabitation and marital disruption among white, black, and Mexican American women
We use data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 4,547) to investigate racial and ethnic differences in risk factors for marital disruption, with a particular emphasis on premarital cohabitation. We find that the nature and strength of the estimated effects of several risk factors for disruption differ across groups. In particular, premarital cohabitation is positively associated with subsequent marital disruption among non-Hispani…
Understanding Racial Differences in Marital Disruption: Recent Trends and Explanations
We use data from the Current Population Survey to investigate racial differences in recent patterns of marital disruption. Although a leveling in the trend of disruption has occurred for White women since 1980, our results suggest less stabilization in rates of disruption among Black women. We also observe significant differences by race in the effects of key compositional factors on the risk of marital disruption, including age at marriage, educ…
Remarriage of Women and Men After Divorce: The Role of Socioeconomic Prospects
This analysis of remarriage among the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study's cohort of high school graduates investigates the relationship between socioeconomic prospects and remarriage after divorce. This article expands on previous efforts by including multiple measures of socioeconomic prospects and considering their importance over an extended time frame. In addition, a comparative approach is taken in this analysis, with the importance of socioecono…
Can differential exposure to risk factors explain recent racial and ethnic variation in marital disruption
Precarious Employment, Bad Jobs, Labor Unions, and Early Retirement
Results provide some support for hypotheses derived from theories of cumulative stratification, suggesting that earlier employment experiences should influence retirement outcomes indirectly through later-life characteristics. However, midlife employment experiences remain associated with earlier retirement, net of more temporally proximate correlates, highlighting the need for further theorization and empirical evaluation of the mechanisms throu…
Stepfather Families and the Emotional Well-Being of Adolescents
Although approximately one-third of all children born in the United States are expected to spend some time living in a married or cohabiting stepfamily, our understanding of the implications of stepfamilies for the well-being of youth remains incomplete. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this research investigates adolescent depressive symptomatology and suicide ideation in stepfather families, paying careful a…
Explaining Race and Ethnic Variation in Marriage: Directions for Future Research
Infidelity, Initiation, and the Emotional Climate of Divorce: Are There Implications for Mental Health
A large literature has examined the role of "secondary" stressors, such as problems with finances, social support, residential mobility, and children, in producing the well-documented association between divorce and a variety of psychopathological conditions. Much less attention, however, has been paid to variation in the "primary" disruption experience. We address this omission using data from the National Survey of Families and Households to in…
Remarriage and the Nature of Divorce: Does it Matter Which Spouse Chose to Leave
This research examines the ways in which decisions to begin and to end relationships may be interrelated. Using data from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, the author investigates whether knowledge of initiator status in separation improves our understanding of subsequent patterns of remarriage and union entry. Previous research and theories of divorce suggests that divorce initiators may perceive favorable prospects fo…
The Reproductive Context of Cohabitation in the United States: Recent Change and Variation in Contraceptive Use
Drawing on data from 2 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth ( N = 11,065), the current research addressed 2 overarching questions about the reproductive context of cohabitation in the United States. First, did patterns of contraceptive use among cohabitors change during the last 2 decades of the 20th century? Second, did patterns of contraceptive use among cohabiting women tend to vary by education or race/ethnicity? Results point to a g…
Desire for Sterilization Reversal Among U.S. Females: Increasing Inequalities by Educational Level
Future research should consider how insurance coverage of all methods under the Affordable Care Act may affect use of sterilization and desire for reversal
The perplexing links between contraceptive sterilization and (dis)advantage in ten low-fertility countries
This study investigated the association between contraceptive sterilization and socio-economic status (measured by educational attainment) in ten countries, using data from the 2006-10 National Survey of Family Growth and the 2004-10 Generations and Gender Surveys. The findings confirm that a long-standing association between socio-economic status and sterilization persists in the contemporary United States: female sterilization is associated wit…
Understanding Sterilization Regret in the United States: The Role of Relationship Context
Although one fourth of sterilized reproductive-aged women in the United States express a desire to have their sterilization procedures reversed, the pathways leading to sterilization regret remain insufficiently understood. Particularly little is known about how cohabitation affects the likelihood of sterilization regret. This study used data from the 2006 to 2010 National Survey of Family Growth to investigate how relationship context shapes wom…
Socioeconomic Standing and Variability in Marriage Timing in the Twentieth Century
This research draws on extensive data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to shed new light on change and variability in family life. I address two overarching questions. First, how did variability in marriage timing change over the course of the twentieth century? Second, did changes in the variability of marriage timing occur broadly across socioeconomic groups, or have they been limited to the t…
The Association Between Retirement and Emotional Well-being: Does Prior Work-Family Conflict Matter
Retirement may come more as a relief than as a stressor for individuals previously experiencing high levels of work demands interfering with family life. However, particularly among women, retirement may not relieve the burdens of family life stressors
Work-Family Conflict and Retirement Preferences
Our analyses provide the first direct evidence of the role played by work-family conflict in the early stages of the retirement process, although we were not able to identify the sources of conflict underlying this relationship. Identifying the sources of this conflict and the psychological mechanisms linking work-family conflict to retirement preferences is an important task for future researchers
Placing patterns of economic assortative mating in context: A reply to Press (2004) and England (2004)
Remarriage of Women and Men After Divorce: The Role of Socioeconomic Prospects
This analysis of remarriage among the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study's cohort of high school graduates investigates the relationship between socioeconomic prospects and remarriage after divorce. This article expands on previous efforts by including multiple measures of socioeconomic prospects and considering their importance over an extended time frame. In addition, a comparative approach is taken in this analysis, with the importance of socioecono…
Infidelity, Initiation, and the Emotional Climate of Divorce: Are There Implications for Mental Health
A large literature has examined the role of "secondary" stressors, such as problems with finances, social support, residential mobility, and children, in producing the well-documented association between divorce and a variety of psychopathological conditions. Much less attention, however, has been paid to variation in the "primary" disruption experience. We address this omission using data from the National Survey of Families and Households to in…
Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage
Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history analysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between the early baby-boom cohort (born between 1950 and 1954) a…
Remarriage and the Nature of Divorce: Does it Matter Which Spouse Chose to Leave
This research examines the ways in which decisions to begin and to end relationships may be interrelated. Using data from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, the author investigates whether knowledge of initiator status in separation improves our understanding of subsequent patterns of remarriage and union entry. Previous research and theories of divorce suggests that divorce initiators may perceive favorable prospects fo…
Placing patterns of economic assortative mating in context: A reply to Press (2004) and England (2004)
Racial House, Big House, Home: Contemporary Abolitionism in Toni Morrison's Paradise
The changing importance of white women's economic prospects for assortative mating
Given recent changes in the labor force participation and economic standing of women, we ask whether a woman's position in the labor market has become a more important determinant of her position in the marriage market. Unlike much prior research on trends over time in assortative mating, we take an individual-level approach to the analysis and rely on improved measures of labor market position, such as measuring wives' wages before marriage and …
Understanding Racial Differences in Marital Disruption: Recent Trends and Explanations
We use data from the Current Population Survey to investigate racial differences in recent patterns of marital disruption. Although a leveling in the trend of disruption has occurred for White women since 1980, our results suggest less stabilization in rates of disruption among Black women. We also observe significant differences by race in the effects of key compositional factors on the risk of marital disruption, including age at marriage, educ…
Special Reviewers
Premarital cohabitation and marital disruption among white, black, and Mexican American women
We use data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 4,547) to investigate racial and ethnic differences in risk factors for marital disruption, with a particular emphasis on premarital cohabitation. We find that the nature and strength of the estimated effects of several risk factors for disruption differ across groups. In particular, premarital cohabitation is positively associated with subsequent marital disruption among non-Hispani…
Work-Family Conflict and Retirement Preferences
Our analyses provide the first direct evidence of the role played by work-family conflict in the early stages of the retirement process, although we were not able to identify the sources of conflict underlying this relationship. Identifying the sources of this conflict and the psychological mechanisms linking work-family conflict to retirement preferences is an important task for future researchers
Can differential exposure to risk factors explain recent racial and ethnic variation in marital disruption
Stepfather Families and the Emotional Well-Being of Adolescents
Although approximately one-third of all children born in the United States are expected to spend some time living in a married or cohabiting stepfamily, our understanding of the implications of stepfamilies for the well-being of youth remains incomplete. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this research investigates adolescent depressive symptomatology and suicide ideation in stepfather families, paying careful a…
Explaining Race and Ethnic Variation in Marriage: Directions for Future Research
The Association Between Retirement and Emotional Well-being: Does Prior Work-Family Conflict Matter
Retirement may come more as a relief than as a stressor for individuals previously experiencing high levels of work demands interfering with family life. However, particularly among women, retirement may not relieve the burdens of family life stressors
The Reproductive Context of Cohabitation in the United States: Recent Change and Variation in Contraceptive Use
Drawing on data from 2 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth ( N = 11,065), the current research addressed 2 overarching questions about the reproductive context of cohabitation in the United States. First, did patterns of contraceptive use among cohabitors change during the last 2 decades of the 20th century? Second, did patterns of contraceptive use among cohabiting women tend to vary by education or race/ethnicity? Results point to a g…
Remarriage and Stepfamilies: Strategic Sites for Family Scholarship in the 21st Century
This article reviews areas of advancement over the past decade in our understanding of remarriage and stepfamilies and suggests promising new directions for future work. Profound shifts in the demographic context of family life motivate central themes in recent scholarship on remarriage and stepfamilies, including the diversity and complexity of stepfamily structures and processes, the consequences of multiple partnerships for adults and children…
Precarious Employment, Bad Jobs, Labor Unions, and Early Retirement
Results provide some support for hypotheses derived from theories of cumulative stratification, suggesting that earlier employment experiences should influence retirement outcomes indirectly through later-life characteristics. However, midlife employment experiences remain associated with earlier retirement, net of more temporally proximate correlates, highlighting the need for further theorization and empirical evaluation of the mechanisms throu…
Race, Ethnicity, and the Changing Context of Childbearing in the United States
In what ways do childbearing patterns in the contemporary United States vary for white, black, and Hispanic women? Why do these differences exist? Although completed family size is currently similar for white and black women, and only modestly larger for Hispanic women, we highlight persistent differences across groups with respect to the timing of childbearing, the relationship context of childbearing, and the extent to which births are intended…
The Growing Racial and Ethnic Divide in U.S. Marriage Patterns
The United States shows striking racial and ethnic differences in marriage patterns. Compared to both white and Hispanic women, black women marry later in life, are less likely to marry at all, and have higher rates of marital instability. Kelly Raley, Megan Sweeney, and Danielle Wondra begin by reviewing common explanations for these differences, which first gained momentum in the 1960s (though patterns of marital instability diverged earlier th…
Socioeconomic Standing and Variability in Marriage Timing in the Twentieth Century
This research draws on extensive data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to shed new light on change and variability in family life. I address two overarching questions. First, how did variability in marriage timing change over the course of the twentieth century? Second, did changes in the variability of marriage timing occur broadly across socioeconomic groups, or have they been limited to the t…
The perplexing links between contraceptive sterilization and (dis)advantage in ten low-fertility countries
This study investigated the association between contraceptive sterilization and socio-economic status (measured by educational attainment) in ten countries, using data from the 2006-10 National Survey of Family Growth and the 2004-10 Generations and Gender Surveys. The findings confirm that a long-standing association between socio-economic status and sterilization persists in the contemporary United States: female sterilization is associated wit…
Desire for Sterilization Reversal Among U.S. Females: Increasing Inequalities by Educational Level
Future research should consider how insurance coverage of all methods under the Affordable Care Act may affect use of sterilization and desire for reversal
Understanding Sterilization Regret in the United States: The Role of Relationship Context
Although one fourth of sterilized reproductive-aged women in the United States express a desire to have their sterilization procedures reversed, the pathways leading to sterilization regret remain insufficiently understood. Particularly little is known about how cohabitation affects the likelihood of sterilization regret. This study used data from the 2006 to 2010 National Survey of Family Growth to investigate how relationship context shapes wom…
Divorce, Repartnering, and Stepfamilies: A Decade in Review
This article reviews key developments in the past decade of research on divorce, repartnering, and stepfamilies. Divorce rates are declining overall, but they remain high and have risen among people older than age 50. Remarriage rates have declined, but the overall proportion of marriages that are remarriages is rising. Transitions in parents' relationships continue to be associated with reduced child well-being, but shifting patterns of divorce …
Sociology (20 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (19 works) · Psychology (17 works) · Economics (16 works) · Demography (13 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (13 works) · Population (12 works) · Demographic economics (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Demography (10 works)