Mothers but not wives: The increasing lag between nonmarital births and marriage
Abstract
This study analyzed trends in marital behavior for unwed mothers who gave birth between
1960 and 2004. With nationally representative data on 15,353 White and Black unmarried
mothers, results indicated that mothers who gave birth after 1989 were waiting much
longer to marry than were mothers giving birth before 1968. The most pronounced delays
were found immediately after a birth. Over the study period, the cumulative proportion
of women who married within three years of a birth decreased for Whites by 27% and
for Blacks by 60%. Findings underscore the separation that has developed between first
births and first marriages in the United States, and they highlight the older ages
at which children are experiencing a transition to marriage. © National Council on
Family Relations, 2011.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/12437Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00803.xPublication Info
Gibson Davis, CM (2011). Mothers but not wives: The increasing lag between nonmarital births and marriage.
Journal of Marriage and Family, 73(1). pp. 264-278. 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00803.x. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/12437.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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