Relationship Characteristics and the Relationship Context of Nonmarital First Births Among Young Adult Women.

Rates of nonmarital childbearing in the U.S. are high, particularly among teen and young adults. In 2009, 87 percent of births to teens and 62 percent of births to young adults aged 20 to 24 occurred to unmarried women (Martin et al., 2011). Concern about nonmarital childbearing, in both the public and policy arenas, also remains high. This is because the costs of nonmarital childbearing for women, their children, and society are generally believed to be substantial (McLanahan, Garfinkel, Mincy, & Donahue, 2010). Additionally, nonmarital childbearing has become increasingly concentrated among the disadvantaged and may help to exacerbate race/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities among future generations (McLanahan, Garfinkel, Mincy, & Donahue, 2010). While some unmarried mothers are truly single, cohabitation is increasingly a context for childbearing; recent data suggest that half of nonmarital births occur within cohabiting unions (Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008; Manlove, Ryan, Wildsmith, & Franzetta, 2010). Although children born to cohabiting couples have the advantages associated with two residential parents, they are also more likely than children born to married parents to be poor and to see their parents’ union end (McLanahan & Percheski, 2008). Identifying factors associated with the relationship status of unmarried parents is central to understanding the context into which an increasing proportion of children are born. A large number of economic, demographic, and cultural explanations have been linked to the ongoing decoupling of marriage and childbearing, particularly among the disadvantaged (Ellwood & Jencks, 2004; Smock & Greenland, 2010). One domain that remains much less examined, however, is relationship context. Limited research has examined how characteristics of romantic or sexual relationships are linked to the transition to nonmarital childbearing (Manlove, Ryan, Wildsmith, & Franzetta, 2010; Zavodny, 2001). This is an important oversight because the relationship dyad is one of the most proximate, if not the most proximate, social contexts in which a birth takes place. Additionally, qualitative research on unmarried couples and vulnerable groups of women often identifies relationship-level characteristics—the financial stability or economic uncertainty of the couple, relationship quality, and fear of relationship instability or divorce—as barriers to marriage, although not to childbearing (Burton & Tucker, 2009; Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Gibson-Davis, Edin, & McLanahan, 2005; Smock & Greenland, 2010). To address this gap, data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort (NLSY97) are used to examine the association between characteristics of young women’s sexual relationships and the transition to a nonmarital first birth, additionally distinguishing cohabiting births from births outside a union. Specifically, we measure similarities and differences between young women and their most recent partners in socioeconomic resources (level of education and engagement in school and/or work), age, and race/ethnicity—characteristics linked to other important dimensions of relationships, such as relationship quality, the availability of parental support, shared values, and stability (Hohmann-Marriott & Amato, 2008).