Cohabitation, Marriage, and entry into motherhood

Citation: Manning, Wendy D. (1995) Cohabitation, Marriage, and entry into motherhood. JMF (Volume 57) (RSS)
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Cohabitation, Marriage, and entry into motherhood
Tagged: uw-madison (RSS), wisconsin (RSS), sociology (RSS), demography (RSS), prelim (RSS), qual (RSS), WisconsinDemographyPrelimAugust2009 (RSS)

Summary

Using subsamples of 2,056 women in first unions and 1,763 married women from the National Survey of Families and Households, Manning compares the entry into motherhood of cohabiting women with that of married women and examines the impact of cohabitation on marital fertility. The sample is restricted to white (non-Hispanic) or African-American women who first married (or cohabited) between 1970 and 1984, who did not have a birth before union formation, and who were less than 30 years old at the time of first marriage (or cohabitation). Because this analysis was more representative of white women's experience rather than black women's experience, only white women were included in the multivariate analyses of married women's transition to first birth. Three measures of cohabitation are use: ever cohabit; type of cohabitation; and length of cohabitation. Type of cohabitation is separated into three groups: never cohabited; cohabited continuously with spouse before marriage, and other cohabitation experience before marriage. Length of cohabitation is divided up into four categories for women who continuously cohabit with their spouse: none, less than 6 months, 7-12 months, and 1 year or more. Control variables include race (in first-union models), family structure (intact, step, single, other), mother's education, mother's employment, respondent's employment status, education, and age at marriage (or cohabitation). Life tables are used to answer questions about the probability of having a first birth across marriage duration variables. Discrete time event history models are used for multivariate analyses. Results show that entry into motherhood occurs more often and sooner in marriage than in cohabitation. Differentials by union status are larger for white women than for black women. Yet the transition to marriage from cohabitation does not appear to be influenced by desires to begin bearing children. Once nonpregnant cohabitors marry, the timing of the marital first birth is similar to that of women who never cohabited. Women who cohabited, but did not cohabit continuously with their spouse before marriage do not differ from women who never cohabited. Cohabitation accelerates the timing of marital first births only among White women who were pregnant when they married. Instead, the impact of cohabitation on marital first birth timing operates partly via duration of time spent coresiding (in marriage and cohabitation). White women who cohabited are 40% more likely to have a premaritally conceived birth than women who never cohabited. Also, a significant difference exists between women with and without cohabitation experience once women with cohabitation experience have lived together (total of cohabitation time plus duration of marriage) for about two years.