Statistical indices of marriage patterns in Insular Southeast Asia

Introduction Over the course of the twentieth century, Asia experienced rapid change in patterns of family formation. Social surveys reveal that education and occupation have increasingly had a major infl uence on levels and trends in the formation and dissolution of marriages. Throughout the region people are entering unions later in life, but in some cultural enclaves, early marriage persists. In this paper the changing patterns of marital status are examined through the application of novel methods to compute marital status indices to place the experience of Insular Southeast Asia in the context of other major cultural regions of Asia.