University of Pennsylvania From the SelectedWorks of Kristen Harknett 2011 Education , Labor Markets , and the Retreat from Marriage

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study and Current Population Surveys, we find that labor market conditions play a large role in explaining the positive relationship between educational attainment and marriage. Our results suggest that if low-educated parents faced the same (stronger) labor market conditions as their more-educated counterparts, then differences in marriage by education would narrow considerably. Better labor markets are positively related to marriage for fathers at all educational levels. In contrast, better labor markets are positively related to marriage for less-educated mothers but not their more-educated counterparts. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories about women’s earning power and marriage, the current economic recession, and future studies of differences in family structure across education groups. *Department of Sociology, 271 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, harknett@sas.upenn. edu. The authors gratefully acknowledge suggestions from Paul Allison, Audrey Beck, Francesco Billari, Marcy Carlson, Jerry Jacobs, Hugh Louch, Steve Martin, and Tod Mijanovich, and editorial assistance from Faizan Khan. Funding for the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study was provided by NICHD (#R01HD36916) and a consortium of private foundations and other government agencies. The retreat from marriage in recent decades has occurred most dramatically for those with less than a college education (Ellwood and Jencks 2004). Marriage has declined and nonmarital childbearing and divorce have increased at all education levels, but more so for those with a high school degree or less (Goldstein and Kenney 2001; McLanahan 2004; Schoen and Cheng 2006). These differences across education groups appear for both parents and non-parents but are of particular concern when children are involved. Educational differences in parents’ marital status are important because children raised by married parents enjoy a host of economic and social advantages compared with their counterparts (Brown 2004; Carlson and Corcoran 2001; Manning and Lamb 2003; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). Further, educational differences in marital status are likely to add to the economic disadvantages faced by children as a direct result of low maternal education and to contribute to the intergenerational transmission of economic disadvantages (McLanahan 2004). Although recent research has documented stark and widening differences in marital status by education, particularly among parents, the causes of these differences remain unclear (Ellwood and Jencks 2004). Our paper considers the importance of labor market conditions in explaining differences in marriage by education. We also consider whether the relationship between labor market conditions and marriage differs by level of education. We take advantage of data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study to compare transitions to marriage following a nonmarital birth for mothers and fathers by their level of educational attainment. Focusing on a sample of unmarried parents provides several benefits. First, we are able to incorporate detailed characteristics of unmarried mothers and the fathers of their recent child. Prior research has often been limited to women only or to unrelated women and men rather than couples. Only half of the couples in our sample share the same broad level of education, so analyzing both mother and father’s education, and the economic circumstances that follow from these levels of education, could be important. Second, unwed parents may face stronger normative pressure to marry than couples without children (Thornton and Young-DeMarco 2001). Therefore, a focus on unmarried parents demonstrates how economic circumstances may prevent parent couples from marrying despite longstanding (although eroding) norms that dictate otherwise. Finally, unmarried parents are a group of particular policy relevance because their relationship transitions have implications for the young children they are raising. With almost 40 percent of births occurring outside of marriage (Ventura 2009), our sample of unmarried parents represents a large segment of the broader population. Among the 3,354 unmarried couples in our sample, mothers and fathers with higher levels of educational attainment are significantly more likely to marry in the five years following a nonmarital birth. In examining these differences, we make three contributions: First, we show that labor market conditions for mothers and fathers with different levels of education account for a large portion of differences in marriage across education groups. This finding contributes to a more general sociological literature, linking macro-level environments to personal decisions. Second, we show that women’s economic opportunities have a stronger positive influence on marriage for lower educated mothers than for more highly educated mothers. This finding extends literature on the theoretical independence and income effects of women’s economic opportunities. Third, based on our findings, we predict that the current economic recession will pose a barrier to marriage, especially for parents with a high school education or less, and exacerbate existing differences in marriage by education.