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Title: Having a Premarital Birth Reduces the Likelihood a Woman Will Marry
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Hollander, Dore
Having a Premarital Birth Reduces the Likelihood a Woman Will Marry
Family Planning Perspectives 27,5 (September-October 1995): 221-222.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2136281
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: Alan Guttmacher Institute
Keyword(s): Childbearing, Adolescent; Childbearing, Premarital/Nonmarital; Family Studies; Marital Status; Marriage; National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG); Poverty; Pregnancy, Adolescent; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Data from four large U.S. surveys (National Survey of Family Growth, 1988, 8,450 women; National Survey of Families and Households, 1987-1988, 13,017 women and men; National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1989, 5,369 women; National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, 1987, 3,679 women) indicate that premarital childbearing reduces the likelihood that a woman will marry by 9-41% compared to childless women. When women who marry within six months of giving birth were excluded from the calculation, on the assumption that they married the child's father, premarital birth was associated with a 20-53% reduction in the likelihood of marriage. The likelihood of marriage is further reduced if the woman is on welfare. The obstacle to marriage does not appear to be associated with the stigma of premarital childbirth, the inability of the woman to participate in activities in which she is likely to meet men, or the loss of Aid to Families with Dependent Children which occurs upon marriage. The researchers found that these women generally did not have children as a result of poor marriage prospects; instead, the unintended childbirth derailed plans for marriage. They also found that premarital childbearing was related to an increased risk of subsequent poverty, both among women who never marry and those who marry but experience later marital disruption. Premarital childbearing resulted in adverse consequences for both the mother and the child in terms of education and poverty.
Bibliography Citation
Hollander, Dore. "Having a Premarital Birth Reduces the Likelihood a Woman Will Marry." Family Planning Perspectives 27,5 (September-October 1995): 221-222.