The Effect of Union Status at First Childbirth on Union Stability: Evidence from Eastern and Western Germany

It is often assumed that cohabitation is much less stable than marriage. If cohabitation becomes more common among parents, children may be increasingly exposed to separation. However, little is known about how the proportion of cohabiting parents relates to their separation behavior. Higher shares of childbearing within cohabitation might reduce the proportion of negatively selected couples among cohabiting parents, which could in turn improve their union stability. This study focuses on parents who were cohabiting when they had their first child. It compares their union stability within a context in which they represent the majority or the minority. The German case is well-suited to this research goal because non-marital childbearing is common in eastern Germany (60 %) but not in western Germany (27 %). The data came from the German Family Panel (pairfam), and include 1,844 married and cohabiting mothers born in 1971–1973 and 1981–1983. The empirical results suggest that the union stability of cohabiting mothers is positively related to their prevalence: survival curves showed that eastern German cohabiting mothers had a greater degree of union stability than their western German counterparts. This difference increased in the event-history model, which accounted for the particular composition of eastern German society, including the relatively low level of religious affiliation among the population. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity did not change this result. In sum, these findings indicate that context plays an important role in the union stability of cohabiting parents.

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abstract: In this paper, we investigate (1) the mutualcausal relationship between first unionformation and first childbirth, and (2) theexistence of constant unmeasured determinantsshared by these two events. We argue that thesedeterminants mainly consist of valueorientations that are heterogeneous in thepopulation. We apply event-history techniquesto retrospective survey data on Spain, allowingfor unobserved heterogeneity components whichsimultaneously affect the two processes. Ourfindings confirm the existence of a strongselection effect, which influences both unionformation and first birth. When controlling forthese shared factors, we find that the risk ofconception increases immediately at marriage,and it continues to be high during thefollowing four years. Entry into cohabitation,in contrast, produces a much smaller increasein the relative risk of conception. The effectof conception on union formation isparticularly strong during pregnancy, but itdeclines sharply after delivery.

title: The Interrelations Between Cohabitation, Marriage and First Birth in Germany and Sweden
abstract: We study the interrelationships between union-formation forms and fertility in Swedish and West German female cohorts born in 1949–1971. We apply simultaneous hazard models, permitting the presence of correlated unobserved heterogeneity. This method allows us to control for country-specific composition of the population with respect to several socio-economic variables, as well as with respect to unobserved factors jointly affecting childbearing and union formation behavior. Our results confirm that partnership formation and the transition to parenthood are partially interchangeable. Net of those selection effects, we find that the impact of being in a union on first birth is higher in Sweden than in Germany, in particular for cohabitation.

title: Event history analysis with stata
abstract: Preface.  Event History Data Structures. Nonparametric Descriptive Methods. Exponential Transition Rate Models. Piecewise Constant Exponential Models. Exponential Models With Time-Dependent Covariates. Parametric Models of Time-Dependence. Methods to Check Parametric Assumptions. Semiparametric Transition Rate Models. Problems of Model Specification.

title: Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic transition
abstract: In this article, I argue that the trends associated with the second demographic transition are following two trajectories and leading to greater disparities in children’s resources. Whereas children who were born to the most-educated women are gaining resources, in terms of parents’ time and money, those who were born to the least-educated women are losing resources. The forces behind these changes include feminism, new birth control technologies, changes in labor market opportunities, and welfare-state policies. I contend that Americans should be concerned about the growing disparity in parental resources and that the government can do more to close the gap between rich and poor children.

title: Union Transitions Following the Birth of a Child to Cohabiting Parents
abstract: Despite a growing interest in the family trajectories of unmarried women, there has been limited research on union transitions among cohabiting parents. Using data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, we examined how family complexity (including relationship and fertility histories), as well as characteristics of the union and birth, were associated with transitions to marriage or to separation among 1,105 women who had a birth in a cohabiting relationship. Cohabiting parents had complex relationship and fertility histories, which were tied to union transitions. Having a previous nonmarital birth was associated with a lower relative risk of marriage and a greater risk of separation. In contrast, a prior marriage or marital birth was linked to union stability (getting married or remaining cohabiting). Characteristics of the union and birth were also important. Important racial/ethnic differences emerged in the analyses. Black parents had the most complex family histories and the lowest relative risk of transitioning to marriage. Stable cohabitations were more common among Hispanic mothers, and measures of family complexity were particularly important to their relative risk of marriage. White mothers who began cohabiting after conception were the most likely to marry, suggesting that “shot-gun cohabitations” serve as a stepping-stone to marriage.

title: Do You Need to Shop Around?
abstract: Although age at marriage is one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of marital dissolution, few studies have attempted to explain this established association. This analysis merges marital history data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth with 1980 census data describing the quantity of spousal alternatives available to husbands and wives in the local geographic area to test one such explanation. The main hypothesis, derived from the theory of marital search, suggests that persons who marry young will be more likely than those who marry later in life to dissolve their marriage when they encounter abundant alternatives to their current spouse. Discrete-time event history analyses offer no support for this hypothesis. Although the risk of marital dissolution is highest where either husbands or wives chance numerous spousal alternatives, the impact of age at marriage on divorce is significantly weaker in marriage markets containing abundant remarriage opportunities. Some of the effect of age at marriage on marital dissolution is attributable to the detrimental impact of early marriage on educational attainment. Future research directions for explaining the inverse association between age at marriage and the risk of marital dissolution are discussed.

title: Religion as a Determinant of Economic and Demographic Behavior in the United States
abstract: This paper critically reviews and synthesizes research on the role of religion on various aspects of the economic and demographic behavior of individuals and families in the United States, including the choice of marital partner, union formation and dissolution, fertility, female time allocation, education, wages, and wealth. Using a theoretical framework based on Gary Becker’s contributions to the economics of the family, religious affiliation is seen to affect these outcomes because it has an impact on the costs and benefits of many interrelated decisions that people make over the life cycle. In addition, for behaviors that pertain to married couple households, affiliation matters because it is a complementary trait within the context of marriage. Religiosity, another dimension of religion, also affects economic and demographic outcomes, partly because it accentuates differences by religious affiliation, partly because of the generally beneficial effects that religious involvement has on health and well-being.

title: Dissolution risks in first and higher order marital and cohabiting unions
abstract: More and more people enter multiple unions during their lives, and then they may choose to either cohabit or marry. We examine the implications of this diversity in partnership trajectories by assessing dissolution risks in first and higher order marital and cohabiting unions. We use recent Norwegian survey data that contain complete retrospective union histories. We find that, when selectivity is accounted for, higher-order unions are not less stable than first unions. When dissolution risks for all possible partnership trajectories are compared, we find that former cohabitants who cohabit in a second union are as likely to break up as they were in their first cohabiting union. As soon as they enter marriage in their second unions, however, they do slightly better than first married persons. The previously married experience higher dissolution risks in their second union compared to their first, regardless of their current union type.

title: Sons, Daughters, and the Risk of Marital Disruption
abstract: The association between the sex of children and their parents' risk of marital disruption is examined using the June 1980 Current Population Survey. The finding is that sons reduce the risk of marital disruption by 9% more than do daughters. This difference holds across marriage cohorts, racial groups, and categories of mother's education. A compelling explanation for these findings, supported by data from the National Survey of Children, stresses a father's greater role in raising sons than daughters and his consequently greater involvement in the family. Children provide a new basis for marital cohesion, one that rests on attachments and obligations to children. For fathers, the obligations and attachments are greater if they have sons.

title: The relative risk and timing of divorce in families of children with an autism spectrum disorder.
abstract: We compared the occurrence and timing of divorce in 391 parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and a matched representative sample of parents of children without disabilities using a survival analysis. Parents of children with an ASD had a higher rate of divorce than the comparison group (23.5% vs. 13.8%). The rate of divorce remained high throughout the son's or daughter's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood for parents of children with an ASD, whereas it decreased following the son's or daughter's childhood (after about age 8 years) in the comparison group. Younger maternal age when the child with ASD was born and having the child born later in the birth order were positively predictive of divorce for parents of children with an ASD. Findings have implications for interventions focused on ameliorating ongoing and long-term marital strains for parents of children with an ASD.

title: Changes in Family Composition and Marital Status in Families with a Young Child with Cognitive Delay.
abstract: children;divorce;families;separation Few studies have investigated parental separation, partnering and re-partnering among population-based cohorts of children at risk of intellectual or developmental disabilities. Secondary analysis of data extracted from Waves 1–3 of the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study. Information on the residence status of parents at Waves 1, 2 and 3 was available for 10 848 families. Children with early cognitive delay (ECD) were significantly less likely than other children to be living in households with both biological parents or in households where the mother was married at all time points, including at the time of the child’s birth and when children were aged 9 months, 3 years and 5 years. Although families with a child with ECD were more likely than families with a typically developing child to experience changes in both family composition and marital status over the first 5 years of the child’s life, the net effect of these changes in family composition and marital status from the time of the child’s birth to the time the child was 5 years old was similar for both groups of families. The increased levels of family change amongst families with a child with ECD were wholly accounted for by differences in family socio-economic circumstances. More attention needs to be paid to describing and explaining the dynamics of family composition in the early years of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. ‘Stress reaction’ models attempting to account for rates of parental separation need to incorporate socio-economic factors.

title: Marital Stability and Marital Satisfaction in Families of Children with Disabilities: Chicken or Egg?.
abstract: Although much has been written suggesting that stress, grief, and other factors associated with parenting a child with disabilities results in high rates of marital discord, marital dissatisfaction, and divorce, this notion is poorly supported by research. Research demonstrates that parents of children with disabilities have marriages that exhibit the full range of function and dysfunction seen in the general population, most parents of children with disabilities have normal marriages, and the same things that predict healthy and unhealthy marriages in the general population also predict healthy and unhealthy marriages among parents of children with disabilities. A careful review of empirical studies of divorce rates of parents with and without disabilities suggests two reasonable possibilities: (1) There is no difference in divorce rates between parents of children with disabilities and parents of other children and most parents of children with disabilities do not divorce, or (2) there is a statistically significant but small increase in divorce rates among parents of children with disabilities. Even if the second possibility proves correct, it does not follow that increases in marital problems result from the children’s disabilities. It is at least equally likely that family dysfunction increases risk for divorce and disabilities in children. While a great deal of research has attempted to demonstrate that children with disabilities are somehow harmful to their parents’ marriages, very little attention has been paid to how bad marriages result in poor outcomes for children with disabilities.

title: The seasonality of live birth is strongly influenced by socio-demographic factors.
abstract: The number of births varies markedly by season, but the causes of this variation are not well understood. The proposed explanations include temperature or photoperiod (affecting hormonal concentrations, sperm quality or sexual activity), seasonal variation in pregnancy loss, or cultural factors. In this paper we examined whether birth seasonality is influenced by socio-demographic factors. We used data on all live births registered in the Czech Republic in 1989-1991 (n = 387 496). Differences in the degree of seasonality between socio-demographic groups (defined by maternal age, marital status, education and birth order) were examined by inspection of curves, by comparing coefficients of variations of monthly numbers of births, and by calculating the ratios of the number of births in the 3 peak months (March to May) to the number of births in the 3 lowest months (October to December). We found large differences in the size of the seasonal variation in births by socio-demographic factors. The seasonal variation was highly pronounced in mothers who were 25-34 years old, had higher education, were married, and were pregnant with their second or third child. By contrast, birth seasonality was weak in mothers who were < or =19 years or > or =35 years old, unmarried, had low education, and expected their first or fourth or higher order birth. In a multivariate model, all four socio-demographic variables contributed significantly to seasonal variation. These results suggest that the seasonality of births is, at least in this population, strongly influenced by socio-demographic factors.

title: Is Your Love in Vain? Another Look at Premarital Cohabitation and Divorce
abstract: In this paper we provide an empirical investigation of the association between premarital cohabitation and subsequent risk of divorce. Theoretically couples who cohabit before marriage should have a lower subsequent risk of divorce since cohabitation enables you to gather information about the match quality, and only good matches evolve into marriage. However, a considerable number of papers have come to the complete opposite conclusion. The counter-intuitive result has been justified with self-selection of cohabitants as the main argument. In the present paper, we provide new evidence concerning the relationship between premarital cohabitation and divorce.