Effect of Culture-Level Clusters on Marriage Plans

The first model in this analysis was a full factorial model including the main effects of Culture-Level Cluster, Culture (nested in Culture-Level Cluster), and Gender, as well as the respective interaction effects. The interaction of Culture x Gender (nested in Culture-Level Cluster) was significant, and the interaction of Culture-Level Cluster x Gender was marginally significant (see Table 29). According to expectations the additional main effects model was non-fitting and showed a higher AIC than the full factorial model. Therefore, the full-factorial model was selected as the final model. An additional model controlling for adolescents’ age yielded a non-significant effect of age with Wald χ² = 1.88 (df = 2, p = .39) and no differences resulted with regard to the other effects in the final model.

For the main effect of Culture-Level Cluster (in the main effects model), all but one single effect across the levels of Culture-Level Cluster on Marriage Plans were significant (one of these was only marginally significant, though). The non-significant effect indicated that the culture-level clusters of (total) interdependence and of independence did not differ with respect to the proportions of adolescents not planning to get married as compared to those who did not know yet (see Table 30).

Table 29

Multinomial Logistic Regression for Marriage Plans

Model Full Factorial Main Effects

Effects Wald df p Wald df P

Criteria Overall Model Test (LR) Model Fit (LR) Model Comparison AIC R² (U) Chi² df p Chi² df P Intercept only 578.05

Full Factorial 250.25 .183 403.81 38 <.001 saturated model Main Effects 272.70 .158 345.35 20 <.001 58.46 18 <.001 Note. C-L Cl. = Culture-Level Cluster. The acronym in squared brackets signifies that the preceding effect is nested in the factor Culture-Level Cluster. AIC = Akaikes Information Criterion. R² (U) = Nagelkerke’s Pseudo R² (Reduction of Uncertainty). The bold printed model is selected as the best (and final) model according to the AIC. The factors Culture-Level Cluster, Culture, and Gender were used for the definition of subpopulations.

Table 30

Marriage Plans: Contrasts for Culture- Level Cluster

Marry vs. Don’t Know Not Marry vs. Don’t Know Marry vs. Not Marry Culture-Level Cluster B SE Wald B SE Wald B SE Wald

Note. Single contrast effects for the main effect of Culture-Level Cluster on Marriage Plans from the main effects model.

+ p < .10. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

Table 31 shows the distribution of adolescents’ answers with regard to Marriage Plans by Culture, Level Cluster, and Gender. With regard to the main effect of Culture-Level Cluster, in the cluster representing the family model of (total) interdependence a large majority (over 80%) planned to get married while only a small minority was undecided and even fewer were against marriage (see Table 29). In the cluster representing the family model of emotional interdependence, only about half of adolescents planned to get married, many remained undecided, and about 10% did not plan to get married. In the cluster representing the family model of independence, about two thirds of adolescents planned to get married, and

about half of the remaining adolescents were undecided or against marriage, respectively.

Most pro-marriage adolescents were in the cluster representing the family model of (total) interdependence, most undecided adolescents were in the cluster representing the family model of emotional interdependence, and most adolescents opposed to marriage were in the cluster representing the family model of independence.

Table 31

Marriage Plans: Culture, Culture-Level Cluster and Gender Differences

Males Females All

Interdependence 60.8 28.8 10.4 47.6 40.4 12.0 53.2 35.5 11.3 Japan 63.5 24.3 12.2 72.2 15.1 12.7 69.0 18.5 12.5 France 61.8 16.9 21.3 74.5 10.9 14.5 68.8 13.6 17.6 Germany 66.7 20.0 13.3 68.2 13.3 18.5 67.5 16.2 16.2 Switzerland 57.4 12.8 29.8 54.8 22.6 22.6 56.0 18.3 25.7 Cluster:

Independence 63.5 19.1 17.4 69.0 14.4 16.6 66.7 16.4 16.9 All 70.7 18.3 11.0 66.0 22.0 12.0 68.0 20.4 11.6 Note. Males n = 1087. Females n = 1429. All n = 2516.

To account for the significant interaction of Culture and Gender, Figures 16 and 17 display the cross-cultural differences for male and female adolescents, respectively. With respect to male adolescents, participants from cultures belonging to the cluster representing the family model (total) interdependence reported the highest approval rate regarding marriage (85%), about 10% did not know yet, and about 5% did not plan to marry (see Figure 16). Within this cluster, boys from Indonesia were especially marriage-friendly: here, no single adolescent answered that he would not want to get married. Male participants from cultures belonging to the cluster representing the family model of emotional interdependence

were less positive about marriage plans (about 60% “yes”), showed a much greater insecurity about this question (about 30% “don’t know”), and about 10% of these boys reported that they would not want to get married in the future. Within this culture-level cluster, Israeli male adolescents reported more approval of marriage plans and less insecurity than their counterparts from Turkey and China. Finally, participants from cultures belonging to the cluster representing the family model of independence reported a similarly high rate of approval of marriage plans as compared to those from emotional-interdependence-cultures (about 60% “marry”), while they showed a lower rate of insecurity (about 20% “don’t know”), and a higher rate of marriage disapproval (about 20% “not marry”). Within this cluster, German male adolescents showed the highest approval rate of marriage plans while Swiss participants reported the highest disapproval rate.

With regard to female adolescents, the results were similar to those of males in many respects, but there were also differences (see Figure 17): adolescent girls from cultures representing the family model of (total) interdependence reported the highest approval of marriage (80%), 13% did not know yet, and 8% did not want to get married. As with boys, within this cluster, Indonesian girls were even more pro-marriage than girls from South Africa and India, and none of them did not want to get married. Indian girls, on the other hand, were more insecure than girls form the other two cultures, and South African girls showed the highest rate of disapproval within this cluster (see Figure 17). In cultures belonging to the cluster representing the family model of emotional interdependence the average approval rate of marriage was about 50% while about 40% of girls did not know yet about their marriage plans, and about 10% disapproved of future marriage plans. However, Israeli female adolescents were completely different from girls from the other two cultures in this cluster, Turkey and China. Israeli girls reported figures very close to the average of the cluster representing the family model of (total) interdependence-cluster while Turkish and Chinese girls were extremely undetermined about their future marriage: only about 35% said they wanted to get married, and about 50% did not know yet, while about 15% disapproved of a future marriage. Regarding female adolescents from cultures belonging to the cluster representing the family model of independence, about 70% wanted to get married, and about 15% did not know yet or disapproved of a future marriage, respectively. There were also within-cluster differences in this cluster, but not as strong as in the other two clusters:

especially, less Swiss girls planned to get married and more disapproved of marriage as compared to girls form the other three cultures in the cluster (Japan, Germany, and France).

Figure 16. Male adolescents’ Marriage Plans across Cultures and Culture-Level Clusters.

Figure 17. Female adolescents’ Marriage Plans across Cultures and Culture-Level Clusters.

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Overall, cluster-differences and within cluster-(cross-cultural)-differences found for the male sample were even stronger in the female sample, especially in the emotional interdependence cluster. Here, Israeli girls were even more pro-marriage than Israeli boys, and Turkish and Chinese girls were even more undetermined about marriage than their male counterparts. In the cultures belonging to the cluster representing the family model of independence, on the other hand, females approved more of marriage than males.

With regard to Research Question 2.1.1, the results were partly in line with the expectations based on the theory of family change. Specifically, they were in line with respect to the category “not marry” which increased from cultures characterized by the family model of (total) interdependence over cultures characterized by the family model of emotional interdependence to cultures characterized by the family model of independence. A very interesting aspect is that cultures characterized by the family model of emotional interdependence show a very high proportion of (especially female) adolescents who did not yet know if they want to get married. Furthermore, the overall main effect of Culture-Level Cluster with respect to this variable has to be viewed with caution in light of the significant interaction effect with Gender, and in light of the substantial cross-cultural differences within clusters.

Multilevel Analysis to Estimate the Between-Culture Variance Explained by Culture-Level Cluster Membership. The null model resulted in significant between-variance-components of the intercept of Category 1 (Marry vs. Don’t Know) with u0j (1) = 0.501 (χ² = 232.47, df = 9, p < .001) and of the intercept of Category 2 (Not Marry vs. Don’t Know) with u0j (2) = 0.548, (χ² = 76.58, df = 9, p < .001), indicating significant cross-cultural differences with respect to the outcome variable. In the model including the culture-level effects of the dummy variables representing culture-level cluster membership, three of the four culture-level effects were significant (see Table C-1 in Appendix C). In this model the between-variance-components were reduced to u0j (1) = 0.149 (χ² = 58.96, df = 7, p < .001), and u0j (2) = 0.188 (χ² = 33.12, df = 7, p < .001), respectively. Thus, culture-level cluster membership accounted for 70.3 % of the between-culture variance for Category 1 [(0.501 - 0.149) / 0.501 = .703] and for 65.7 % of the between-culture variance for Category 2 [(0.548 - 0.188) / 0.548 = .657]. Thus, overall about 68 % of the between-culture variance with respect to Marriage Plans was explained by culture-level cluster membership.