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Title: Changes in the Socioeconomic Gradient in Nonmarital Childbearing across Two U.S. Cohorts
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. VanOrman, Alicia
Changes in the Socioeconomic Gradient in Nonmarital Childbearing across Two U.S. Cohorts
Presented: San Diego CA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April-May 2015
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Childbearing, Premarital/Nonmarital; Fertility; First Birth; Socioeconomic Factors

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

The dramatic growth in the prevalence of nonmarital fertility warrants a re-examination of how women's socioeconomic resources shape nonmarital childbearing. Drawing on a rational-choice model of fertility, prior research focused on births during the 1980s and found a negative relationship between women's socioeconomic resources and nonmarital childbearing. Since then, the nature of marriage and nonmarital childbearing has shifted and economic inequality increased, such that previously identified relationships may have changed. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and 1997 cohorts, this study compares two cohorts of women to examine change in how economic factors shape the risk of a nonmarital first birth. Preliminary results suggest that the linkages between wages, employment and education and nonmarital childbearing weakened across cohorts, whereas school enrollment became a more important predictor. These preliminary findings suggest we made need to reconsider how women's own economic resources influence nonmarital fertility.
Bibliography Citation
VanOrman, Alicia. "Changes in the Socioeconomic Gradient in Nonmarital Childbearing across Two U.S. Cohorts." Presented: San Diego CA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April-May 2015.