Paths to Stability for Matching Markets with Couples

We study two-sided matching markets with couples and show that for a natural preference domain for couples, the domain of weakly responsive preferences, stable outcomes can always be reached by means of decentralized decision making. Starting from an arbitrary matching, we construct a path of matchings obtained from `satisfying' blocking coalitions that yields a stable matching. Hence, we establish a generalization of Roth and Vande Vate's (1990) result on path convergence to stability for decentralized singles markets. Furthermore, we show that when stable matchings exist, but preferences are not weakly responsive, for some initial matchings there may not exist any path obtained from `satisfying' blocking coalitions that yields a stable matching.Matching, Couples, Stability, Random Paths, Responsiveness.

Economic resources and the first child in Italy: A focus on income and job stability

At the turn of the twentieth century Italy registered a lowest-low fertility level, i.e., a total fertility rate of 1.26 children per woman in 2000. In this paper we investigate whether and how in that period economic resources and, in particular, income and job stability were linked with couples’ decisions to enter parenthood. With this aim, we use data from ECHP and carry out a longitudinal analysis on a sample of childless married couples to study the transition to their first child. Results show that the couples’ employment arrangement played some role in first child rates, with the single earner arrangement experiencing the highest first birth rates. We also find that employed women with labour income have much lower first birth rates than non-working women, while no evidence is found for male earnings and other sources of income. As concerns job instability, we find evidence that it was not significantly linked with the transition to first time parenthood during the investigated period.event history analysis, income, job stability, transition to first child

Perceived marital quality and stability of intermarried couples: a study of Asian-white, Black-white, and Mexican-white couples

Journal ArticleThe purpose of this study is to compare intermarried and intramarried couples with respect to their marital happiness and perceived marital stability White, black, Mexican, or Asian spouses in black-white, Mexican-white or Asian-white unions were compared to intramarried couples based on data from the 1988 National Survey of Families and Households. The final sample included 4,522 married couples. The results suggest that differences in marital happiness and perceived stability between intermarried and intramarried couples vary by race/ethnicity and gender. Our findings indicate that only interracially married white females reported significantly lower marital happiness and stability than their intramarried counterparts. Conversely, spouses in Mexican male-white female and white male-Asian female unions reported significantly higher marital quality and/or stability than their white counterparts

Determinants of Marriage Stability among Married Couples in North-Central Nigeria Implication for Counselling

The study investigated determinants of marriage stability among married couples in North Central Nigeria. In order to carry out this study, four hypotheses were formulated. An instrument known as “Determinants of Marriage Stability Questionnair (DOMSQ)” was constructed by the researcher and used to collect information from the field. The instrument had content and facial validity and its reliability coefficient is 0.87. The investigator used eight research assistants to administer nine hundred and ninety copies of the questionnaire on the respondents in Kogi and Benue States. Nine hundred and eighty three copies were retrieved from the respondents indicating 99.3 percent return rate. The researcher collated the information got from the field work and the Z statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that, there was no significant difference between male and female married couples in their identification of childlessness as determinant of marriage stability, there was no significant difference between married couples in the urban and rural areas in their identification of sexual satisfaction as determinant of marriage stability, there was no significant difference between old and young married couples in their identification of cultural background as determinant of marriage stability, there was no significant difference between married couples from Kogi and Benue States in their identification of communication as determinant of marriage stability. One of the recommendations is that couples who are faced with the problem of childlessness should seek medical assistance and also be positive about such outcome

Lorentz-violating effects on topological defects generated by two real scalar fields

The influence of a Lorentz-violation on soliton solutions generated by a system of two coupled scalar fields is investigated. Lorentz violation is induced by a fixed tensor coefficient that couples the two fields. The Bogomol'nyi method is applied and first-order differential equations are obtained whose solutions minimize energy and are also solutions of the equations of motion. The analysis of the solutions in phase space shows how the stability is modified with the Lorentz violation. It is shown explicitly that the solutions preserve linear stability despite the presence of Lorentz violation. Considering Lorentz violation as a small perturbation, an analytical method is employed to yield analytical solutions.Comment: (9 pages, 11 figures

Physical aggression, compromised social support, and 10-year marital outcomes: Testing a relational spillover model

The purpose of the present study was to test a relational spillover model of physical aggression whereby physical aggression affects marital outcomes due to its effects on how spouses ask for and provide support to one another. Newlywed couples (n = 172) reported levels of physical aggression over the past year and engaged in interactions designed to elicit social support; marital adjustment, and stability were assessed periodically over the first 10 years of marriage. Multilevel modeling revealed that negative support behavior mediated the relationship between physical aggression and 10-year marital adjustment levels whereas positive support behavior mediated the relationship between physical aggression and divorce status. These findings emphasize the need to look beyond conflict when explaining how aggression affects relationships and when working with couples with a history of physical aggression who are seeking to improve their relationships

Z2\mathbb Z_2 fractional topological insulators in two dimensions

We propose a simple microscopic model to numerically investigate the stability of a two dimensional fractional topological insulator (FTI). The simplest example of a FTI consists of two decoupled copies of a Laughlin state with opposite chiralities. We focus on bosons at half filling. We study the stability of the FTI phase upon addition of two coupling terms of different nature: an interspin interaction term, and an inversion symmetry breaking term that couples the copies at the single particle level. Using exact diagonalization and entanglement spectra, we numerically show that the FTI phase is stable against both perturbations. We compare our system to a similar bilayer fractional Chern insulator. We show evidence that the time reversal invariant system survives the introduction of interaction coupling on a larger scale than the time reversal symmetry breaking one, stressing the importance of time reversal symmetry in the FTI phase stability. We also discuss possible fractional phases beyond $\nu = 1/2$.Comment: 15 pages, 18 figure

Preference Structure and Random Paths to Stability in Matching Markets

This paper examines how preference correlation and intercorrelation combine to influence the length of a decentralized matching market's path to stability. In simulated experiments, marriage markets with various preference specifications begin at an arbitrary matching of couples and proceed toward stability via the random mechanism proposed by Roth and Vande Vate (1990). The results of these experiments reveal that fundamental preference characteristics are critical in predicting how long the market will take to reach a stable matching. In particular, intercorrelation and correlation are shown to have an exponential impact on the number of blocking pairs that must be randomly satisfied before stability is attained. The magnitude of the impact is dramatically different, however, depending on whether preferences are positively or negatively intercorrelated.