Change in the Stability of Marital and Cohabiting Unions Following the Birth of a Child

Does union type make a difference when you separate? Frequency of father–child contact and father’s satisfaction with the relation

Growing separation and divorce rates have attracted scholars’ attention to the association between relationship breakup and the relations between fathers and their minor children. Pre-separation life course events and characteristics may influence this relationship. One important characteristic to be considered is the type of union in which ex-partners were in. In this article, we study the association between previous union type and post-dissolution father–child face-to-face contact and father’s satisfaction with the relationship, before and after controlling for factors related to selection into a cohabiting union. Using pooled data from the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey for 11 European countries, it is shown that, models that do not control for characteristics typically connected with selection into different union types suggest that previously cohabiting fathers have less intensive contact with their child(ren) and are less satisfied with the relationship with their minor children. Taking into consideration the main socio-demographic father and child’s characteristics, this difference turns out not to be statistically significant. This research suggests that union type does not make a difference, confirming most previous studies of single European countries.

Examining Differences in Alcohol and Smoking Behaviors between Parenting and Nonparenting Lesbian Women

BACKGROUND

The transition to parenthood is a significant life event that has implications for health behaviors and health. Few studies have examined alcohol use and smoking by parenthood status (nonparent vs. parent) among women who identify as lesbian.

METHODS

This study used data from two longitudinal studies, the Chicago Health and Life Experiences of Women Study (n = 135) and the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (n = 116), to compare problem drinking and cigarette smoking trajectories among lesbian-identified women by parenthood status. We used mixed models to investigate differences in problem drinking and cigarette smoking in three waves of data in each study.

RESULTS

Lesbian parents reported significantly less problem drinking, but not cigarette smoking, than nonparent lesbian women. When considering the interaction between parental status and time, problem drinking was significantly higher among nonparents than parents at each time interval.

CONCLUSIONS

Parenthood was associated with positive changes in drinking among lesbian women; however, more research is needed to understand how to support smoking cessation among parenting lesbian women.

Women's Divergent Union Transitions After Marital Dissolution in the United States

In the United States, high marital instability calls for more research on union transitions after marital dissolution. Previous studies focus on remarriage and pay little attention to rising post-dissolution cohabitation. In this study, I apply marital search theory to examine the level, pace, and differentials of repartnering (remarriage or cohabitation vs. staying single) and the exit from cohabitation (remarriage or dissolution vs. staying cohabiting). Adopting union history data from the pooled National Survey of Family Growth (2011-2017), I track union transitions among a sample of N = 2129 women. Analyses based on life tables and discrete-time event history analyses reveal important findings. First, most women repartner after marital dissolution. Compared to remarriage, cohabitation occurs more frequently and shows a quicker pace. Second, post-dissolution cohabitation is short-lived, and its transition to remarriage is more common than to dissolution. Third, these union transitions differ by demographic and socioeconomic predictors, including age, race and ethnicity, and education. Overall, I reveal that post-dissolution union transition is a divergent and unequal process, and I further discuss the implications on theory and family inequality.

The Relationship Context of Early Transitions to Parenthood: The Influence of Arrest

In the U.S., many young adults who have had contact with the criminal justice system are parents. Using the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (n = 1321), we drew on family demography and criminology literatures to examine the association between arrest, an understudied indicator of contact with the criminal justice system, and transitions to early parenthood. We also distinguished transitions to parenthood that occurred within four different relationship contexts: (1) single; (2) dating; (3) cohabiting; and (4) married. Using event history analyses, we found that young men and women who experienced an arrest transitioned to parenthood earlier than their counterparts who were not arrested. Further, men with an arrest, compared to men who had not been arrested, were more likely to report that they were dating the biological mother of their first child around the time of birth. In contrast, women with an arrest had an increased likelihood of having their first birth while cohabiting with the biological father. Our results highlighted the importance of a prior arrest for early transitions to parenthood and are relevant for understanding the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage and the diverging destinies of children and parents. Furthermore, the gender differences in the results illustrated the importance of including women in criminal justice analyses and men in fertility analyses.

Changes in Couples' Earnings Following Parenthood and Trends in Family Earnings Inequality

The growing economic similarity of spouses has contributed to rising income inequality across households. Explanations have typically centered on assortative mating, but recent work has argued that changes in women's employment and spouses' division of paid work have played a more important role. We expand this work to consider the critical turning point of parenthood in shaping couples' division of employment and earnings. Drawing on three U.S. nationally representative surveys, we examine the role of parenthood in spouses' earnings correlations between 1968 and 2015. We examine the extent to which changes in spouses' earnings correlations are due to (1) changes upon entry into marriage (assortative mating), (2) changes between marriage and parenthood, (3) changes following parenthood, and (4) changes in women's employment. Our findings show that increases in the correlation between spouses' earnings prior to 1990 came largely from changes between marriage and first birth, but increases after 1990 came almost entirely from changes following parenthood. In both instances, changes in women's employment are key to increasing earnings correlations. Changes in assortative mating played little role in either period. An assessment of the aggregate-level implications points to the growing significance of earnings similarity after parenthood for rising income inequality across families.

Marriage and Masculinity: Male-Breadwinner Culture, Unemployment, and Separation Risk in 29 Countries

Scholars argue that gender culture, understood as a set of beliefs, norms, and social expectations defining masculinities and femininities, plays an important role in shaping when romantic relationships end. However, the relevance of gender culture is often underappreciated, in part because its empirical identification remains elusive. This study leverages cross-country variation in gender norms to test the hypothesis that gender culture conditions which heterosexual romantic relationships end and when. We analyze the extent to which male-breadwinning norms determine the association between men's unemployment and couple separation. Using harmonized household panel data for married and cohabiting heterosexual couples in 29 countries from 2004 to 2014, our results provide robust evidence that male-breadwinner norms are a key driver of the association between men's unemployment and the risk of separation. The magnitude of this mechanism is sizeable; an increase of one standard deviation in male-breadwinner norms increases the odds of separation associated with men's unemployment by 32 percent. Analyses also show that the importance of male-breadwinner norms is strongest among couples for whom the male-breadwinner identity is most salient, namely married couples. By directly measuring and leveraging variation in the key explanatory of interest, gender culture, our study offers novel and robust evidence reinforcing the importance of gender norms to understand when romantic relationships end.

Family Complexity and Children's Behavior Problems over Two U.S. Cohorts

OBJECTIVE

We consider the prevalence of family complexity and its association with children's externalizing behavior problems over children's life course and over historical time.

BACKGROUND

A growing literature has demonstrated the prevalence and multidimensional nature of family complexity and its association with child behavior. The nature/strength of this association may have changed in recent cohorts as family complexity has become more common.

METHOD

Data are from the 1997 and 2014 cohorts of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement. Samples represent U.S. children ages 0-12 years born since 1985 (N=5,030). Ordinary least squares regression estimated change in the association between family complexity and behavior between cohorts. Difference-in-difference models estimated baseline and longitudinal differences in children's behavior as linked to family complexity.

RESULTS

The prevalence of family complexity has stabilized over the last two decades, and the antecedents to parental repartnering and complex sibship organization remain similar. The expectation that increasing family complexity contributes to elevated behavior problem scores was not supported. Instead, children who eventually acquired a step- or half-sibling or who experienced parents' union dissolution had elevated behavior problems prior to those changes.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence of and precursors to complex family organization were stable across recent child cohorts. The observed association between family complexity and child behavior problems may be attributable to selection mechanisms linked to both parents' family formation trajectories and to children's behavior, rather than to family change itself.

Fathers' Involvement with Their Children Before and After Separation

Changes in fathering over the last decades have led to substantially more involvement of fathers in their children's upbringing. At the same time, high rates of parental separation and subsequent loss of contact fuel concern about separated fathers' role in their children's lives. Underlying such concern is the assumption that separation represents a discontinuity in fathers' parenting. This paper investigates whether fathers' pre- and post-separation paternal involvement is linked: are fathers with lower levels of contact after separation those who were less involved fathers when co-resident? To answer this question, we draw on a nationally representative UK longitudinal study of children born in 2000-2001 to interrogate the links between fathering before and after separation for 2107 fathers, who separated from their child's mother before the child was age 11. We show that fathers who were more involved parents prior to separation tend to have more frequent contact after separation, adjusting for other paternal and family characteristics. The size of this association between pre- and post-separation fathering is, however, modest, and even among more involved fathers, intensity of contact declines over time.

A Comparison of Low-Income Versus Higher-Income Individuals Seeking an Online Relationship Intervention

Compared to higher-income couples, low-income couples experience higher rates of relationship disruption, including divorce and breakup of cohabiting relationships. In recognition of this disparity in relationship outcomes, relationship interventions have increasingly been targeted at this population. However, these interventions have had limited impacts on the relationships of low-income couples. Developing interventions that are effective and responsive to the needs of low-income couples requires descriptive data on the challenges those couples perceive in their own relationships and an assessment of how their needs compare to the more affluent couples typically served by relationship interventions. The current study sampled over 5,000 individuals at the time they were seeking an online relationship intervention and compared the relationship functioning and life circumstances reported by low-income individuals to that of higher-income individuals. Results indicate that low-income individuals seeking a relationship intervention had higher levels of relationship distress (lower relationship satisfaction, more intense primary relationship problems, and less relationship stability), and had greater levels of contextual stress (more children living at home, less likely to be employed full-time, and lower levels of perceived health). Results suggest that future interventions designed to target low-income couples, as well as practitioners working with low-income couples, should be prepared to handle higher levels of relationship distress and contextual stressors than they may typically see in more affluent couples.

Unraveling the (Uneven) Linkage? A Reflection on Population Aging and Suburbanization in a Mediterranean Perspective

A complex interplay between socioeconomic transformations and demographic dynamics has characterized the long-term development of European countries. As a characteristic example of such linkage, the present study focuses on the spatial relationship between metropolitan growth and population age structure. Preferences for urban and suburban locations reflect complex socioeconomic phenomena such as sprawl, class segregation, gentrification and filtering. However, the spatial linkage between sprawl and demographic transitions was relatively poorly analyzed, and should be more extensively investigated in relation with population dynamics and socioeconomic structures at local scale. By reviewing pertinent literature, this study outlines how space exerts a non-neutral impact on population age structures in Europe, shaping housing needs and influencing settlement patterns and processes of urban transformation. While suburban locations have concentrated younger families and larger households in Northern and Western Europe, the socio-demographic composition of new settlements is increasingly dominated by older inhabitants in the Mediterranean region. Results of this work suggest how discontinuous urban expansion was specifically associated with an elder, wealthy population with high standard of living and a preference for specific housing locations such as detached villas with gardens and swimming pools.

Pathways to Parenthood in Social and Family Context: Decade in Review, 2020

OBJECTIVE

This article reviews research from the past decade on patterns, trends, and differentials in the pathway to parenthood.

BACKGROUND

Whether, and under what circumstances, people become parents has implications for individual identity, family relationships, the well-being of adults and children, and population growth and age structure. Understanding the factors that influence pathways to parenthood is central to the study of families and can inform policies aimed at changing childbearing behaviors.

METHOD

This review summarizes recent trends in fertility as well as research on the predictors and correlates of childbearing, with a focus on the United States and on research most relevant to family scholars. We document fertility differentials and prevailing explanations for variation across sub-groups and discuss alternative pathways to parenthood, such as adoption. The article suggests avenues for future research, outlines emerging theoretical developments, and concludes with a discussion of fertility policy.

RESULTS

U.S. fertility has declined in recent years; whether fertility rates will increase is unclear. Elements of the broader social context such as the Great Recession and increasing economic inequality have impacted pathways to parenthood, and there is growing divergence in behaviors across social class. Scholars of childbearing have developed theories to better understand how childbearing is shaped by life course processes and social context.

CONCLUSION

Future research on the pathways to parenthood should continue to study group differentials, refine measurement and theories, and better integrate men and couples. Childbearing research is relevant for social policy, but ideological factors impact the application of research to policy.

Divorce, Repartnering, and Stepfamilies: A Decade in Review

This article reviews key developments in the past decade of research on divorce, repartnering, and stepfamilies. Divorce rates are declining overall, but they remain high and have risen among people older than age 50. Remarriage rates have declined, but the overall proportion of marriages that are remarriages is rising. Transitions in parents' relationships continue to be associated with reduced child well-being, but shifting patterns of divorce and repartnering during the past decade have also reshaped the family lives of older adults. We review research on the predictors and consequences of these trends and consider what they reveal about the changing significance of marriage as an institution. Overall, recent research on divorce, repartnering, and stepfamilies points to the persistence of marriage as a stratified and stratifying institution and indicates that the demographic complexity of family life is here to stay.

The Demography of Families: A Review of Patterns and Change

The authors review demographic trends and research on families in the United States, with a special focus on the past decade. They consider the following several topics: (a) marriage and remarriage, (b) divorce, (c) cohabitation, (d) fertility, (e) same-gender unions, (f) immigrant families, and (g) children's living arrangements. Throughout, the authors review both overall trends and patterns as well as those by social class and race-ethnicity. The authors discuss major strands of recent research, emphasizing emerging themes and promising directions. They close with a summary of central patterns and trends and conclude that recent trends are not as uniform as they tended to be in earlier decades, making the description of family change increasingly complex.

Change in the Stability of First Premarital Cohabitation Among Women in the United States, 1983-2013

The rapid growth in cohabitation over the past quarter-century necessitates studies of changes in the stability and outcomes of cohabitation. We utilized data from the 1988 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and the most recent NSFG data from 2011-2013 to examine the outcomes of two comparable cohorts of first premarital cohabiting women (1983-1988 and 2006-2013). Our results showed that cohabitations formed between 2006 and 2013 lasted longer-18 months, on average-than those formed in the mid-1980s, which lasted for an average of 12 months. We found that the lengthening of cohabitation over time cuts across sociodemographic characteristics-race/ethnicity, education, and motherhood status-and resulted mostly from the declining rate of transitioning to marriage. We found some support for the diverging destinies perspective in that disparities in the outcomes of cohabitation by education and by cohabiting birth have widened over time. Our analyses showed that changes in the outcomes of first premarital cohabiting unions over the past three decades were not due to compositional shifts in cohabitors. These results demonstrate the evolving dynamics of cohabitation over a 30-year window.

Contribution of the Rise in Cohabiting Parenthood to Family Instability: Cohort Change in Italy, Great Britain, and Scandinavia

In this study, we investigate through microsimulation the link between cohabiting parenthood and family instability. We identify mechanisms through which increases in cohabiting parenthood may contribute to overall increases in separation among parents, linking micro-level processes to macro-level outcomes. Analyses are based on representative surveys in Italy, Great Britain, and Scandinavia (represented by Norway and Sweden), with full histories of women’s unions and births. We first generate parameters for the risk of first and higher-order birth and union events by woman’s birth cohort and country. The estimated parameters are used to generate country- and cohort-specific populations of women with stochastically predicted family life courses. We use the hypothetical populations to decompose changes in the percentage of mothers who separate/divorce across maternal birth cohorts (1940s to 1950s, 1950s to 1960s, 1960s to 1970s), identifying how much of the change can be attributed to shifts in union status at first birth and how much is due to change in separation rates for each union type. We find that when cohabiting births were uncommon, increases in parents’ separation were driven primarily by increases in divorce among married parents. When cohabiting parenthood became more visible, it also became a larger component, but continued increases in parents’ divorce also contributed to increasing parental separation. When cohabiting births became quite common, the higher separation rates of cohabiting parents began to play a greater role than married parents’ divorce. When most couples had their first birth in cohabitation, those having children in marriage were increasingly selected from the most stable relationships, and their decreasing divorce rates offset the fact that increasing proportions of children were born in somewhat less stable cohabiting unions.

Strengthening Social Programs to Promote Economic Stability during Childhood

Economic instability has increased in recent decades and is higher for families with low incomes and Black families. Such instability is thought to be driven primarily by precarious work and unstable family structure. In addition, the social safety net has become less of a stabilizing force for low‐income families, in part because benefits are often tied to employment and earnings. Too much change in economic circumstances may disrupt investments in children, parenting practices, and family routines—particularly if the economic changes are unpredictable, undesired, or not part of upward mobility. Given the considerable evidence that economic circumstances affect child health and development, economic stability can and should be an important goal of multiple policy domains. In this report, we describe economic instability, review the pertinent theories for considering how economic instability might matter to children, and describe ideas for policies that could reduce or moderate instability. We include policies that reduce instability in earnings, use public assistance to stabilize income or reduce material hardship, or enhance parents' capacity to deal with or avoid instability.

Measuring Cohabitation in U.S. National Surveys

Cohabitation is one of the fastest growing family forms in the United States. It is widespread and continues to increase but has not been consistently measured across surveys. It is important to track the quality of data on cohabitation because it has implications for research on the correlates and consequences of cohabitation for adults and children. Recent rounds of the Current Population Survey (CPS), National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY-97), and National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) provide an opportunity to contrast estimates of cohabitation status and experience using nationally representative data sets and assess the quality of data on cohabitation in these data sets. Results demonstrated that the surveys provide similar estimates of current cohabitation status, except the CPS resulted in lower estimates. In terms of cohabitation experience (i.e., having ever cohabited), Add Health produced higher estimates, whereas both the NSFG and NLSY-97 produced lower estimates. We documented a strong education gradient across all surveys, with lower levels of current cohabitation and cohabitating experience and with increases in educational attainment. Racial/ethnic differences in cohabitation were inconsistent across surveys. We discuss aspects of sampling and measurement that potentially explain differences in estimates. Our findings have implications not only for survey design but also for the interpretation of results based on these four national surveys.

Family Change and Changing Family Demography

Increases in life expectancy, high rates of movement into and out of couple relationships, and increasing exposure to stepfamilies raise new questions about who is in a family, the distinction between who lives together and who is a family member, and the extent to which family members are expected to meet the long-term obligations that define kinship. These questions are important because families have traditionally served as a vital private safety net for family members. Demographic changes increase family members' uncertainty about their relationships. Family ties are less stable and more uncertain among the economically disadvantaged, and uncertainty may exacerbate these disadvantages by weakening individuals' ability to rely on family members' support to alleviate hardship. I argue that demographers should focus on individuals' family relationships to gain insight into living arrangements and family dynamics. I also outline the development of family concepts and improvements in study design to identify principles that demographers should incorporate in new research to shed light on families' support for their members.

Shifting Influences of Pregnancy on Union Formation across Age and Union Stability across Cohabitation Duration

Nonmarital pregnancy increases the likelihood of entering a marital or cohabiting union. The timing of a pregnancy within the life course of an individual or relationship duration may also impact the likelihood of forming coresidential unions and their stability. This study examines the association between non-marital pregnancy and first union formation and how this varies across age. It also considers whether the influence of pregnancy on the stability of cohabitations shifts across their duration. Using data on young adults in the U.S. (Add Health), competing-risk event-history models examine the time-varying influence of pregnancy on union formation and stability. Findings suggest that pregnancy is more strongly associated with union formation during adolescence, becoming less influential as women age. Within cohabitations, pregnancy had a bigger impact on increasing the likelihood of marriage early within unions, but the longer a couple cohabited the less likely they were to transition to marriage when pregnant.

Social Class Divergence in Family Transitions: The Importance of Cohabitation

OBJECTIVE

This study examined trends in familial transitions by maternal education and whether transitions rose because of changes in prevalence (the share of children exposed to a relationship state, either marriage or cohabitation) or churning (the number of entrances and exits conditional on being exposed to a relationship state).

BACKGROUND

Children's experiences of transitions, an important predictor of well-being, have leveled off in recent decades. Plateauing in transitions may reflect heterogeneity by socioeconomic status.

METHOD

Data came from the National Survey of Family Growth on firstborn children observed from ages 0 to 5 among mothers aged 15 to 34 at the time of the child's birth (N = 7,265). Kitagawa methods decomposed changes in transitions into those attributable to changes in prevalence and churning. Analyses were conducted separately by maternal education.

RESULTS

Children born to lower and moderately educated women experienced an increase in transitions because cohabitation increased in prevalence rather than a change in the number of exits and entrances from cohabiting unions. Among this disadvantaged group, children exposed to cohabitation experienced much more churning than children exposed to marriage. Children born to mothers with a 4-year degree did not experience an increase in transitions and predominantly experienced stable parental marriages.

CONCLUSION

Transitions only plateaued for children born to highly educated mothers, whereas transitions rose for less-advantaged children. Transitions appear to be another aspect of early family life experiences that contributes to diverging destinies.

A Research Note on the Stability of Coresidential Unions Formed Postconception

There is a large literature examining the stability of mid-pregnancy unions, and parallel work on unions formed after a nonmarital birth, but research has yet to compare pre- and post-birth unions and simultaneously consider whether the union is with the father or a new partner. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort, the author compares the stability of coresidential unions (cohabitations and marriages) among three groups of mothers with non-union first conceptions: those with a mid-pregnancy union with the father (N = 203), those with a post-birth union with the father (N = 333), and those with a union with a new partner (N = 342). Compared to mid-pregnancy unions with the father, post-birth father unions are 35% more likely to dissolve. New-partner unions are more likely to dissolve than both types of father unions. These associations persist when accounting for union type and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Cross-National Comparisons of Union Stability in Cohabiting and Married Families With Children

Increases in cohabitation, nonmarital childbearing, and partnership dissolution have reshaped the family landscape in most Western countries. The United States shares many features of family change common elsewhere, although it is exceptional in its high degree of union instability. In this study, we use the Harmonized Histories to provide a rich, descriptive account of union instability among couples who have had a child together in the United States and several European countries. First, we compare within-country differences between cohabiting and married parents in education, prior family experiences, and age at first birth. Second, we estimate differences in the stability of cohabiting and married parents, paying attention to transitions into marriage among those cohabiting at birth. Finally, we explore the implications of differences in parents' characteristics for union instability and the magnitude of social class differences in union instability across countries. Although similar factors are associated with union instability across countries, some (prior childbearing, early childbearing) are by far more common in the United States, accounting in part for higher shares separating. The factors associated with union instability-lower education, prior childbearing, early childbearing-also tend to be more tightly packaged in the United States than elsewhere, suggesting greater inequality in resources for children.

Midpregnancy Marriage and Divorce: Why the Death of Shotgun Marriage Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Conventional wisdom holds that births following the colloquially termed "shotgun marriage"-that is, births to parents who married between conception and the birth-are nearing obsolescence. To investigate trends in shotgun marriage, we matched North Carolina administrative data on nearly 800,000 first births among white and black mothers to marriage and divorce records. We found that among married births, midpregnancy-married births (our preferred term for shotgun-married births) have been relatively stable at about 10 % over the past quarter-century while increasing substantially for vulnerable population subgroups. In 2012, among black and white less-educated and younger women, midpregnancy-married births accounted for approximately 20 % to 25 % of married first births. The increasing representation of midpregnancy-married births among married births raises concerns about well-being among at-risk families because midpregnancy marriages may be quite fragile. Our analysis revealed, however, that midpregnancy marriages were more likely to dissolve only among more advantaged groups. Of those groups considered to be most at risk of divorce-namely, black women with lower levels of education and who were younger-midpregnancy marriages had the same or lower likelihood of divorce as preconception marriages. Our results suggest an overlooked resiliency in a type of marriage that has only increased in salience.