About

Arland Thornton is a Professor of Sociology, Population Studies, and Survey Research at the University of Michigan. He is also associated with the Native American Studies Program and centers within the International Institute. Thornton is a social demographer who has served as president of the Population Association of America and has previously held a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health. His career has focused extensively on the study of family and demographic issues, including marriage, cohabitation, childbearing, gender roles, education, and migration. He has pioneered the study of developmental idealism, including its conceptualization, measurement, and influence across various countries. Thornton has collaborated in collecting and analyzing data from numerous countries such as Albania, Argentina, Bulgaria, China, Egypt, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Malawi, Nepal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey, the U.S., and Vietnam. Currently, he is conducting sociological studies of American Indians, examining various aspects of American Indian life, including trends and differentials in school enrollment, literacy, and years of schooling completed.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Economic geography
• Economics
• Geography
• Development economics
• Demography
• Economic growth
• Gender studies
• Demographic economics
• Developmental psychology
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Business

Selected publications

• The influence of developmental idealism on Turkish parents’ intention to continue childbearing

  Journal of Population Research · 2025-03-13

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Literacy among American Indians: Levels and Trends from 1900 to 1930 and across Birth Cohorts from 1830 to 1920

  Ethnohistory · 2024-07-01 · 8 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This article investigates American Indian literacy in the United States. Using 1900 through 1930 decennial census data, literacy levels and trends in reading and writing are documented for this period and for people born from 1820 through 1920, providing a large-scale historical picture of American Indian literacy. The pace and extent of literacy is documented from very low for those born during the early 1800s to fairly universal for those born during the early 1900s. Increases in Native literacy are demonstrated to have been closely related to birth year, with successive birth years having higher levels of literacy. Little evidence was found that increases from 1900 to 1930 happened because people increased their literacy after the school years and as they matured through adulthood. A close birth year level relationship between literacy and one year of school attainment was also found.

  PublisherDOI

• John Millar and Other Scholars of the 1700s and 1800s Using the Developmental Paradigm, Reading History Sideways, and International Cross-Sectional Data to Reach Conclusions about Changes in Family Relationships and Processes

  2023-08-18 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper I show how John Millar and other scholars of the 1700s and 1800s formulated ideas about several family transitions, including changes from emphases on family commitments to individual rights; from strong parental authority to individual autonomy of children; from arranged marriages to love matches; and a burst of sentiment in marital and parent-child relationships. These scholars observed many remarkable differences in family relationships between their own Western cultures and societies outside the West. These substantial and real cross-cultural differences in family patterns were also probably exaggerated by the inability of Western observers to correctly interpret family life of other cultures. These Western scholars believed they could use data from societies outside the West to proxy for the Western historical past. Consequently, differences between family life in Western and non-Western societies--both real ones and those misperceived through cultural insensitivity--were believed to represent social change that occurred in the Western past. The content of this working paper was originally prepared as part of my 2005 book, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Edward Westermarck, the Developmental Paradigm, Reading History Sideways, and Family Myths

  2023-08-18 · 4 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper I describe how Edward Westermarck became an influential creator of a marriage myth in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In The History of Human Marriage, Westermarck marshalled a remarkable array of empirical data to show marriage was relatively late and that many never married in Western Europe. He further concluded marriage was young and universal outside Europe and that there was an East-West gradient within Europe in the timing and prevalence of marriage. Reading history sideways, Westermarck used these geographic marriage patterns to infer historical change over time. He concluded that societal development caused later and fewer marriages because he viewed Western Europe as more developed than Eastern Europe and places outside Europe. Westermarck’s ideas were well accepted and widely circulated in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1965, John Hajnal confirmed these geographic divisions in marriage patterns, but revealed the belief that development, or industrialization, was the causal agent pushing marriage timing later was a myth. Rejecting reading history sideways in favor of analyzing historical data, Hajnal traced the Western European marriage pattern back to at least the 1700s, finding even rural eighteenth-century Scandinavia practiced late marriage. The content of this working paper was originally prepared as part of my 2005 book, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Descriptions of the Reading History Sideways Method (the Comparative Method) by Scholars of the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s

  2023-08-18

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s, scholars turned to the experiences and institutions of contemporary societies they judged as less developed as proxies for Western Europe’s past. Early scholars referred to this practice as the comparative method, while I label it reading history sideways. In this paper, I document several early scholars’ descriptions and promotion of this practice. Early French scholars who read history sideways, include Montesquieu, Turgot, Auguste Comte, and Frederick Le Play. Across the channel, Scottish scholars, such as Adam Ferguson and John Millar, and English scholars, like John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer, endorsed the practice. Other European and American scholars, including Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward Westermarck, were also proponents. The content of this working paper was originally prepared as part of my 2005 book, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Frederick Le Play, the Developmental Paradigm, Reading History Sideways, and Family Myths

  2023-08-18 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper I describe how Frederick Le Play became the influential creator of the extended family myth in the late 19th century. In The Workers of Europe, Le Play examined European family structure in the mid-1800s. He categorized families into three types -- patriarchal, stem, and unstable (now known as nuclear) families -- and examined how those types were distributed across Europe. He found patriarchal families were common in Eastern Europe and Central Europe, stem families in Southern Europe, and unstable families in Western Europe. This pattern is largely compatible with contemporary research, although recent studies provide a more detailed and complex picture. Like other early scholars, Le Play drew on the developmental paradigm and read history sideways to understand how these European family patterns arose. Since unstable families were found in what he viewed as more developed Western Europe, he concluded that societies progress from patriarchal to unstable family types as they develop over time. His flawed conclusion is highly influential; it persisted largely unchallenged until the mid-1900s and remained accepted by many even longer. The content of this working paper was originally prepared as part of my 2005 book, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Robert Malthus, the Developmental Paradigm, Reading History Sideways, and Family Myths

  2023-08-18 · 4 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper I describe how Robert Malthus was one influential creator of the myth that marriage was young and universal in the recent past of Western Europe. His belief in this myth traces its origins to his broader endorsement of the developmental paradigm and reading history sideways in his famous volume, An Essay on the Principle of Population. In Book I of this volume, Malthus described what he termed “less civilized nations,” which were a mix of ancient European societies and contemporary societies located outside Europe. He also emphasized the practice of young and universal marriage in contemporary East Asia and Africa. In Book II, Malthus described contemporary information for what he termed “modern Europe.” Believing all populations follow a natural progression, he then used the characteristics of what he viewed as “less civilized nations” to infer the past of “modern Europe.” He mistakenly concluded marriage must have been young and universal in Europe’s recent past because it was young and universal in societies he viewed as proxies for when Europe was “less civilized.” Malthus further described several mechanisms that would lead to delayed marriage. The content of this working paper was originally prepared as part of my 2005 book, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Developmental Idealism and a Half-Century of Family Attitude Trends in the United States

  Sociology of Development · 2022-09-13 · 9 citations

  articleSenior author

  This article examines a half-century of trends in family attitudes and beliefs in the United States, including attitudes toward gender, marriage, childbearing, cohabitation, sex outside marriage, divorce, and same-sex relations. These trends are viewed through the lens of developmental idealism. We also describe how the developmental idealism framework applies to Western contexts generally and the United States specifically. We trace family attitudes from the 1960s through 2018 using four data sources: the Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children, Monitoring the Future, the General Social Survey, and the International Social Survey Programme. We find profound and largely consistent changes in Americans’ attitudes. We argue these changes can be understood as the expansion of developmental idealism in the United States. Americans increasingly endorsed family attributes long understood as modern under developmental idealism, as well as attributes more recently viewed as modern through extensions of freedom and equality. At the same time, sizable majorities remained committed to marriage and children. While Americans increasingly supported all individuals’ freedom to choose among a diversity of family behaviors, most continued to view marriage and children favorably in their own lives.

  PublisherDOI

• Distinguishing between Old and New Developmental Idealism and among Beliefs about Correlation, Causation, and Expectations

  Sociology of Development · 2022-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Using data from a national survey of urban Turks, we examine whether people report an understanding and acceptance of developmental idealism (DI) messages about the relationship between development and family characteristics. We examine two different aspects of DI, which the recent literature distinguish as original DI versus new DI. An important contribution of our paper is its focus on a detailed conceptualization and measurement of DI. We constructed six different scales that crosscut the original-versus-new distinction and the dimensions of correlation, causation, and expectations. We find that the vast majority of Turks endorse most DI beliefs, with variations in responses between the original and new aspects. Our analyses also suggest that region of residence, ethnicity, education, marriage and fertility, age, gender, and secularism are substantially, in some cases unexpectedly, related to DI beliefs. More educated people generally endorse DI less than those with less education, and the effects of marital and fertility status are also in a direction different from our theoretical predictions. Furthermore, the estimated effects of the explanatory variables on DI vary across the six scales, providing evidence that understanding and acceptance of DI beliefs vary by the original-versus-new distinction and across the three dimensions. Thus, this work provides evidence that DI is not a unified package of ideas but a network of schemas related to each other with varying strength.

  PublisherDOI

• Developmental Idealism and a Half Century of Family Attitude Trends in the United States

  2021-09-01 · 3 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  This paper examines a half century of trends in family attitudes and beliefs in the United States, including attitudes towards gender, marriage, childbearing, cohabitation, sex outside marriage, divorce, and same-sex relations. These trends are viewed through the lens of developmental idealism. We also describe how the developmental idealism framework applies to Western contexts generally and the United States specifically. We trace family attitudes from the 1960s through 2018 using four data sources: Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children, Monitoring the Future, General Social Survey, and International Social Science Project. We find profound and largely consistent changes in Americans’ attitudes. We argue these changes can be understood as the expansion of developmental idealism in the United States. Americans increasingly endorsed family attributes long understood as modern under developmental idealism, as well as attributes more recently viewed as modern through extensions of freedom and equality. At the same time, sizable majorities remained committed to marriage and having children. While Americans increasingly supported all individuals’ freedom to choose among a diversity of family behaviors, most continued to view marriage and children favorably in their own lives.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R21HD065077

  NIH · $421k · 2013

• NIH Grant U01HD030928

  NIH · $1.7M · 2000

• Training in the Demography and Economics of Aging

  NIH · $16.7M · 1992–2027

• NIH Grant R01HD054847

  NIH · $2.9M · 2014

• NIH Grant D43TW000657

  NIH · $3.0M · 2012

Frequent coauthors

• Linda Young‐DeMarco

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  53 shared

• William G. Axinn

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  37 shared

• Yu Xie

  Peking University

  26 shared

• Deborah Freedman

  STATinMED (United States)

  17 shared

• Attila Melegh

  Corvinus University of Budapest

  15 shared

• Jeffrey Swindle

  Harvard University Press

  15 shared

• Dirgha J. Ghimire

  14 shared

• Stuart A. Karabenick

  14 shared

Labs

• Native American StudiesPI

Awards & honors

• MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health
• distinguished career awards from the American Sociological A…
• distinguished career awards from the Population Association…