Economic roles and marriage timing: A cohort comparison between women and men in East and West Germany

Over recent decades, we have seen a delay of marriage and simultaneously an expansion of the educational system and massive changes in the labour market in most Western countries. In this paper, we link these phenomena within the unique historical context of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Making use of data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we analyse the associations between individuals’ current economic roles –full- and part-time employed, unemployed, enrolment in education or training– and the timing of their first marriage for men and women born between 1944 and 1986 in the former FRG and GDR. We find that full-time employees are most likely to enter first marriage, while being unemployed or enrolled in education are associated with a delay of first marriage. However, there are crucial differences by gender, region and birth cohort. Women are more likely to marry when they finish education, while for men it seems to be more important to find gainful employment. These associations rarely change over birth cohorts in West Germany. In East Germany, the situation differs significantly. For the older (pre-reunification) cohorts, we find almost no associations between economic roles and marriage timing. For the younger (post-reunification) cohorts, we find convergence to the West German patterns.