Magic moment? Maternal marriage for children born out of wedlock.
Abstract
To test the existence of the "magic moment" for parental marriage immediately post-birth
and to inform policies that preferentially encourage biological over step parent marriage,
this study estimates the incidence and stability of maternal marriage for children
born out of wedlock. Data came from the National Survey of Family Growth on 5,255
children born non maritally. By age 15, 29 % of children born non maritally experienced
a biological-father marriage, and 36 % experienced a stepfather marriage. Stepfather
marriages occurred much later in a child's life-one-half occurred after the child
turned age 7-and had one-third higher odds of dissolution. Children born to black
mothers had qualitatively different maternal marriage experiences than children born
to white or Hispanic mothers, with less biological-parent marriage and higher incidences
of divorce. Findings support the existence of the magic moment and demonstrate that
biological marriages were more enduring than stepfather marriages. Yet relatively
few children born out of wedlock experienced stable, biological-parent marriages as
envisioned by marriage promotion programs.
Type
Journal articleSubject
AdolescentAdult
Child, Preschool
Family Characteristics
Female
Humans
Illegitimacy
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
Marriage
Socioeconomic Factors
Young Adult
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9196Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1007/s13524-014-0308-7Publication Info
Gibson-Davis, Christina (2014). Magic moment? Maternal marriage for children born out of wedlock. Demography, 51(4). pp. 1345-1356. 10.1007/s13524-014-0308-7. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9196.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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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Christina M. Gibson-Davis
Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Christina M. Gibson-Davis is a professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke
University, with a secondary appointment in sociology. Her research interests center
around social and economic differences in family formation patterns. Her current research
focuses on the how divergent patterns of family formation affect economic inequality.

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