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Socioeconomic homogamy – choosing a partner from one's own socioeconomic stratum – is regarded as an indicator of status-group closure in a society. Therefore, changes in socioeconomic homogamy over time are indicative of whether social barriers between status groups are growing or weakening. Various theoretical perspectives suggest that over the course of modernization, group boundaries in terms of socioeconomic family background become easier to cross, whereas homogamy with regard to individually achieved socioeconomic position strengthens. Using Finnish register data and log-linear modeling we analyze changes in homogamy with respect to educational attainment (achieved status) in cohorts born in 1957–1979, and in homogamy with respect to social class of the parental family (ascribed status) in cohorts born in 1965–1979. We examine the marriages and cohabitations of 30-year-old women in each birth cohort. The results indicate that homogamy in social class origins has weakened only among children of farmers. General educational homogamy shows a small increase from the oldest to the youngest cohort, but the trends differ depending on the level of education: homogamy has strengthened among those with a low level of education, whereas it has weakened among the highly educated. The results further show that women are increasingly inclined to partner with men who are less educated than themselves. The decline in homogamy among the higher educated indicates more social openness in Finnish society, but at the same time the increase in homogamy among those with few educational resources may be a sign of increasing marginalization of this group.

This study explores the effects of homogamy and heterogamy in socio-economic background and educational level on the marriage rate among cohabitors. Using unique register data and the Cox proportional hazards model, we analyse marriage formation in over 20,000 cohabiting unions in Finland. The large number of observations enables an inspection of the interactive effects in all partner-status combinations. Our results show that homogamy or heterogamy in socio-economic background is of little consequence for the couple’s probability of marrying; homogamy encourages marriage only among cohabitors from farmer families. With regard to education, homogamy increases the marriage rate among cohabitors with a low level of education, but reduces it among the highly educated. Whether educational heterogamy promotes, deters or has no effect on the marriage rate depends on the combination. The results emphasize the importance of a detailed measurement of homogamy and heterogamy when examining the role of group boundaries in union transitions.

The clinical material for this study of female fantasies stems from a specific psychoanalytical situation where the analyst and the analysand are pregnant at the same time. The impact of this situation is powerful. The emergence of archaic fantasies is facilitated in transference and countertransference. Fantasies of damage to the baby or to the procreative function may emerge very vividly in the double pregnancy setting and working through these fantasies becomes possible. It is suggested that these fantasies are typical female castration fantasies and manifest the fear of the mother's revenge and punishment for forbidden oedipal wishes. The double pregnancy setting may sensitize the analyst to her pregnant analysand's unconscious communication and yet blind the analyst in some areas to the protection of her own baby. The duality of phallic strivings in the girl's psychosexual development is discussed. They may be employed as a defense against specific feminine anxieties, such as fear of retaliatory atta...

The article studies to what extent regional socioeconomic and cultural characteristics explain spatial patterns in the Second Demographic Transition in Finland. The country's 75 functional regions are used as area units. A summary indicator of the transition based on divorce and cohabitation is used as the dependent variable. The results show that the spatial pattern is mainly determined according to the regional level of urbanization, but the effect is mediated by cultural characteristics (secularization and support for the socialist and green parties). The cultural characteristics have only a modest independent effect. 1. Introduction This paper was inspired by the studies conducted by Lesthaeghe and Neels (2002) and Lesthaeghe and Neidert (2006) on the determinants of the spatial patterns in demographic transitions in three European countries and the United States. The former study was based on data covering French departements, Belgian arrondissements and Swiss cantons, and analyzed the associations between the indicators of the first and second transitions with historical and contemporary socioeconomic and cultural covariates. The indicators for the second transition were somewhat different in the three countries, and included the divorce rate, non-marital fertility and cohabitation. Most of the explanatory variables (17 from 22 in all countries together) were cultural indicators pertaining to the waves of secularization, voting results, and linguistic divisions. The data included two socioeconomic covariates for France and Belgium and one for Switzerland. Lesthaeghe and Neels (2002) used canonical correlation analysis and found a clear statistical association between indicators of both the first and second demographic transitions and cultural characteristics. The authors presumed that urbanity, high levels of education, and high levels of female labor-force participation would be among the structural predictors for the second transition. This was found to hold best in Switzerland, where the transition was most clearly connected with urbanity and economic development. The link was much weaker in France, and virtually absent in Belgium. In France, both demographic transitions were strongly related to the overall secularization dimension, but both the demographically innovative part of France and areas that were demographic followers contained rural and urban/industrial areas. According to the results for Belgium, the rural-urban distinction in the later 20th century played no role whatsoever in the indicators of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT). In all three countries the link between the ideational (cultural) covariates and both transitions was strikingly pronounced. The explanation, according to the authors, is that the secularization dimension, as it emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, maintained its spatial features until at least the 1960s, and that further ideational developments related to individual autonomy were grafted onto it. Lesthaeghe and Neidert's (2006) study identified the second-demographictransition dimension in the United States by means of a factor analysis of 19 demographic characteristics of states. The transition factor turned out to be strongly correlated with a high level of income and urbanization, a high proportion of Catholics, and a high proportion of adults with at least a college degree. However, the main finding of the study was a still stronger correlation between this factor and the vote for George W. Bush in two presidential elections. Controlling for the effects of the socioeconomic characteristics, the religious affiliations and the ethnic compositions of the populations of the states did not explain this association. According to Lesthaeghe, Neidert and Surkyn (2007), both economic and cultural factors are necessary for a multi-factorial explanation of the Second Demographic Transition, but their respective weights and roles may vary across societies. …