The Effect of Socioeconomic Status and Religiosity on Hungarian Young Adults' Marriage Behavior

This study focuses on young people's marriage behavior, which includes cohabitation, marriage, and plans to marry among the unmarried. The decline in marriages and planning to marry is often explained by the general expansion of education, which contributes to women's economic independence and decision to postpone marrying. Research suggests that religiosity has a greater impact on marriage decisions than either socioeconomic status or education. In this study, we aim to contribute to the literature on how young adults' marriage behavior is influenced by religiosity and socioeconomic status, as measured by education, financial status, and the place of residence. During the analysis, we used data from the Hungarian Youth 2016 survey on young adults aged 18 to 29 years. We examined the determinants of young people's marital status and plans to marry using multinomial and logistic regression analysis. According to our results, the positive effect of religiosity on marriage and plans to marry could be confirmed even after controlling for the influence of education. Although education strengthened plans to get married, it also delayed their occurrence. Furthermore, we found that religiosity increased the chance of cohabitation compared to being single in the sample, but its effect on marriage was stronger. Limitations of this study include our examined age group (18-29 years), as at this age not all marriage decisions had been made, so it was not possible to fully investigate what proportion refrained from marriage entirely.