纽约时报文摘 | 美国人结婚也讲“门当户对”了

美国人结婚也讲“门当户对”了
Marriage Equality Grows, and So Does Class Divide

The Don Drapers of the world used to marry their secretaries. Now they marry fellow executives, who could very well earn more than they do.
过去，唐·德雷伯们喜欢娶他们的女秘书，而现在他们则会选择赚得比他们更多的女强人。

With more marriages of equals, reflecting deep changes in American families and society at large, the country is becoming more segregated by class.
越来越多的平等婚姻，在很大程度上反映了美国社会和家庭的深度变化。美国的阶层则变得更加分化。

“It's this notion of this growing equality between husbands and wives having this paradoxical effect of growing inequality across households,” said Christine Schwartz, a sociologist who studies the topic at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
在威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校做这项课题研究的社会学家克里斯汀·施瓦兹表示，“这是一个矛盾的概念，丈夫和妻子在工作上越来越平等，但在家庭中越来越不平等。”

From Cinderella to Kate Middleton, fictional and real-life fairy tales have told of women marrying up. But it has been a long time since women said they went to college to earn a “Mrs. degree.” In more recent cultural touchstones — like “The Intern,” with Anne Hathaway, and “Opening Belle,” the novel and soon-to-be Reese Witherspoon movie — the protagonists are highly successful women with husbands who don't work. （Spoiler alert: Conflict ensues.）
从灰姑娘到凯特王妃，虚构的和真实的仙女故事，都在描述女性的婚姻。但很久以来，女性主张自己去学校赢取“学位夫人”。近期很多文化试金石——如安妮·海瑟薇主演的《实习生》，以及一部即将由小说《开放美女》改编、瑞茜·威瑟斯彭主演的电影——女主角都非常成功，但她们的丈夫都不工作。（剧透提示：冲突接踵而至）

These changes have been driven by women's increasing education and labor force participation, new gender roles, and the rise of what social scientists call assortative mating.
这些改变来源于以下驱动因素：女性受教育程度提高、加入劳动力大军，新的性别角色以及被社会学家称作的门当户对的婚姻比率正在增加。

Assortative mating is the idea that people marry people like themselves, with similar education and earnings potential and the values and lifestyle that come with them. It was common in the early 20th century, dipped in the middle of the century and has sharply risen in recent years — a pattern that roughly mirrors income inequality in the United States, according to research by Robert Mare, a sociologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. People are now more likely to marry people with similar educational attainment — even after controlling for differences between men and women, like the fact that women were once less likely to attend college.
门当户对是指人们与有着相似教育背景、收入潜力、价值观和生活方式的人结婚。根据洛杉矶加利福尼亚大学的社会学家罗伯特·梅尔的研究，门当户对模式在20世纪初很普遍，于20世纪中叶略微下降，在近些年急剧增长。这个模式基本反映了美国收入不平等的现象。现在的人们更倾向于与相似教育程度的人结婚——甚至在排除一些男女差异性，诸如过去的女性不倾向上大学等因素之后。

阿莱娜和马特·泰勒在位于加州奥克兰的家中。阿莱娜比丈夫多赚40%，但泰勒说“这并不是问题”。

Even though the typical husband still makes more than his wife, the marital pay gap among opposite-sex couples has shrunk significantly in the decades since women started entering the workforce en masse. Today, wives overall make 78 percent of what their husbands make, according to an Upshot analysis of annual survey data from the Census Bureau. That's up from 52 percent in 1970.
自女性开始加入就业大军的这几十年里，尽管在典型情况下，丈夫仍然赚得比妻子多，但异性夫妻间的收入差距已经急剧收缩。根据人口调查局的年度调查数据分析结果，如今妻子们收入总额占丈夫们收入的比例由1970年的52%，升至78%。

In opposite-sex marriages in which both spouses work some amount of time, 29 percent of wives earn more than their husbands do, up from 23 percent in the 1990s and 18 percent in the 1980s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
根据劳动统计局的数据，在异性夫妻双方都花一定时间工作的情况下，20世纪80年代，有18%的妻子们赚的比丈夫多，这一比例在90年代升至23%，现在则升至29%。

The marital pay gap still exists in part because women earn less than men in the economy as a whole, making 79 cents for a man's dollar.
在某种程度上，夫妻收入差距仍然存在。如果将男女分别作为一个经济整体来看，女性赚的比男性少，男性每赚一美元，女性才赚79美分。

It reflects the stickiness of gender roles at work and at home: Marriage significantly depresses women's earnings, and the arrival of children has an even stronger effect. Men, meanwhile, tend to earn more after having children, and studies show that's because employers see mothers as less committed to work and fathers as doubly committed to breadwinning.
这反映了工作和家庭中的性别角色粘性：结婚使女性收入显著减少，孩子的出生则会产生更强的影响。但与此同时，男人在有了孩子之后会赚得更多。研究表明，究其原因，雇主发现妈妈们很少承担工作，但爸爸们加倍努力养家糊口。

The nature of marriage itself is changing. It used to be about the division of labor: Men sought homemakers, and women sought breadwinners. But as women's roles changed, marriage became more about companionship, according to research by two University of Michigan economists, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. Now, people marry others they enjoy spending time with, and that tends to be people like themselves.
婚姻本身的性质发生改变。过去的劳动分工是：男人寻找家庭主妇，女人寻找养家糊口的人。但根据密歇根大学的两位经济学家史蒂芬·贝森和贾斯汀·沃尔弗斯的研究，随着女性角色的转变，婚姻变得更像一种伙伴关系。现在人们越来越喜欢和更像自己、能一起消磨时间的人结婚。

“Husbands and wives had different roles in different spheres, so that was the opposites-attract view of marriage,” Wolfers said. “Today you want people with shared passions, similar interests to you, similar career goals, similar goals for the kids.”
“过去，丈夫们和妻子们在不同的领域担任不同的角色，也就是婚姻中的异性相吸，”沃尔弗斯说，“现在，你会想找一个有着共同爱好、相似兴趣、相近职业目标、对孩子也有着类似期望的人。”

Another reason people are finding mates like themselves is that they are marrying later, so they know more about their partners' prospects and increasingly meet at work. People were least likely to marry those with similar educational backgrounds around the 1950s, according to Mare's research, when people married very young. Americans are increasingly able to make their own romantic choices based on personal preferences, free from family or religious expectations, he found.
人们找到与自己相似的另一半，还一个原因则是结婚晚，所以他们更了解配偶的前景以及更多的在工作中碰面。根据梅尔的研究，整个20世纪50年代，当人们在很年轻时成家，则不太可能与相似教育背景的人结婚。他同时发现，现在的美国人越来越能够基于个人偏好、而非家庭和宗教期待做出自己的浪漫选择。

American society has also become more segregated geographically; people tend to live near others with similar educations and earnings. Researchers have linked the increase in so-called power couples, in which both partners have a college degree, to the fact that educated people are more likely now to live in big cities — so the people they date tend to be educated, too.
美国社会也开始更多的在地理上产生区隔；人们倾向于与相似教育和收入的人住在一起。研究人员发现这样一种联系：双方都有大学学位、所谓的强强联合的夫妻在不断增加，这源于教育程度高的人更倾向在大城市居住，所以他们的约会对象受教育程度往往也比较高。

Technology could also play a role: Dating apps and sites let people filter their potential partners before they even have a conversation.
同时技术对此也起到了作用：约会应用程序和网站让人们在交流之前就过滤出潜在的搭档。

The change is happening internationally, too. In 40 percent of couples in which both partners work, they belong to the same or neighboring income bracket, up from 33 percent two decades ago, according to 2011 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which includes 34 countries. Two-thirds have the same level of education.
这种改变在全世界也正在发生。根据经济合作发展组织2011年的数据显示，在34个国家中，三分之二的夫妻有着相同的教育水平，40%的夫妻都属于相同或相邻收入等级的工作搭档，而在20年前，此比例只有33%。

Despite being more common, these marriages are a break from tradition, and that can present problems.
尽管这一现象日趋普遍，但这种婚姻对传统的突破，也带来问题。

Marriages in which the woman earns more are less likely to form in the first place, which accounts for 23 percent of the overall decline in marriage rates since 1970, according to a large study by the economists Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica of the University of Chicago and Jessica Pan of the National University of Singapore. Using census data from 1970 to 2000, they analyzed the choices people made in so-called marriage markets, based on age, education, race and where they lived.
根据芝加哥大学的经济学家玛丽安·伯特兰和埃米尔·卡梅尼察，以及新加坡国立大学的杰西卡·潘的研究，自20世纪70年代，赚得多的女性不倾向于成家，这一点占结婚率下降原因的23%，成为首要因素。学者通过使用1970年到2000年的人口普查数据来分析人们在所谓的婚姻市场中做出的选择，而年龄、教育、种族以及生活地区等是构成这一市场的基础。

When such marriages do form, the women become more likely to seek jobs beneath their potential or to stop working entirely, and the marriages are more likely to end in divorce. Paradoxically, wives who earn more also do significantly more housework and child care than their husbands do, perhaps to make their husbands feel less threatened, the economists said.
经济学家说，当这种婚姻形成后，女性开始倾向于寻找低于她们潜力的工作或完全停止工作。这种婚姻更可能走向离婚。矛盾的是，那些赚的更多的妻子比丈夫承担了更多的家务和照看孩子，可能这样会使她们的丈夫产生更少的威胁感。

Bill Doherty, a marriage therapist and professor at the University of Minnesota, said he had seen women who were more professionally successful than their husbands compensate by building up their husbands' careers and playing down their own.
明尼苏达大学婚姻治疗师比尔·道尔蒂教授说，他发现那些职业上比丈夫更成功的女性是通过扶持丈夫的事业和放低自己的身段来进行补偿。

Yet that dynamic seems to be changing, he and other researchers said, because young people have more egalitarian views about marriage and the division of labor.
他和其他的研究人员表示，此现象也是动态改变着的，因为年轻人对待婚姻和劳动分工有着更平等的看法。

Alena Taylor, 28, a management consultant, earns 40 percent more than her husband, Matt, 31, a nonprofit executive. “It has felt like a nonissue,” Matt Taylor said.
阿莱娜·泰勒是一个28岁的咨询业管理人员，比已经31岁、身为非盈利机构总经理的丈夫马特多赚40%的薪水。马特·泰勒说：“这好像不是问题。”

They said they knew that conflict could arise over their division of labor when they have children, including because she travels more and he has greater flexibility. “Because my earnings potential is much higher than his, over time we'll have to figure that out,” she said.
他们表示双方都知道有了孩子之后，在夫妻的劳动分工上可能会出现冲突，因为这包括女方出差更多，但男方却有更大的灵活性的问题。阿莱娜·泰勒说：“因为我的薪水潜力比他大，将来我们不得不解决这个问题。”

Researchers say the rise in assortative mating is closely linked to income inequality. The two have increased in tandem, Schwartz, the sociologist from the University of Wisconsin, said: “People who are married tend to be more advantaged, and on top of that, more advantaged people are marrying people like themselves, so those people tend to be doubly advantaged.”
研究人员认为门当户对婚姻的增多，与收入不平等有着密切的联系。威斯康星大学社会学家施瓦茨说，“两者是串联起来的。那些结婚的人会更有优势，最重要的是，那些更有优势的人会与和自己相似的人结婚，所以他们会有着双重优势。”

The effects could become more pronounced in future generations. Studies tell us that parents' income and education have an enormous effect on children's opportunities and achievements — and children today are more likely to grow up in homes in which both parents are more similar than they are different.
这些影响在未来几代会更加显著。研究告诉我们，父母双方的收入和教育水平很大程度上影响了孩子所拥有的机会和成就——如今，孩子更多在其父母是门当户对、而非差别很大的家庭中成长。