IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/jopovw/258.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Unmarried Parents' Expectations Predict Marital Transitions? Early Evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study

Author

Listed:
  • Maureen Waller
  • Sara McLanahan

Abstract

This paper uses newly available information from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Survey to investigate how unmarried mothers' and fathers' expectations about marriage, in addition to their socio-economic and demographic characteristics, are related to transitions to marriage in the year following their child's birth. It also investigates factors that are associated with unmarried parents' expectations about marriage. The results show that mothers and fathers with higher expectations about marriage at the time of their child's birth were significantly more likely to marry between the time of the baseline and follow-up interview. After taking expectations into account, African-American mothers and fathers are less likely to marry, and parents at higher educational levels were more likely to marry, than other parents. We also find that relationship, gender, and socio-economic variables are important predictors of parents' expectations about marriage. However, these variables have somewhat different effects among mothers and fathers.

Suggested Citation

  • Maureen Waller & Sara McLanahan, 2002. "Do Unmarried Parents' Expectations Predict Marital Transitions? Early Evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study," JCPR Working Papers 258, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:wop:jopovw:258
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wendy Manning & Pamela Smock, 1995. "Why marry? Race and the transition to marriage among cohabitors," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(4), pages 509-520, November.
    2. Pamela Smock & Wendy Manning, 1997. "Cohabiting partners’ economic circumstances and marriage," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(3), pages 331-341, August.
    3. Larry Bumpass & R. Raley, 1995. "Redefining single-parent families: Cohabitation and changing family reality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(1), pages 97-109, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria Cancian & Daniel Meyer, 2014. "Testing the Economic Independence Hypothesis: The Effect of an Exogenous Increase in Child Support on Subsequent Marriage and Cohabitation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 857-880, June.
    2. Pau Baizán & Arnstein Aassve & Francesco C. Billari, 2002. "Institutional arrangements and life course outcomes: the interrelations between cohabitation, marriage and first birth in Germany and Sweden," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2002-026, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    3. Esther O. Lamidi & Wendy D. Manning & Susan L. Brown, 2019. "Change in the Stability of First Premarital Cohabitation Among Women in the United States, 1983–2013," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(2), pages 427-450, April.
    4. Waller, Maureen R., 2001. "High hopes: unwed parents' expectations about marriage," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(6-7), pages 457-484.
    5. Audrey Light & Yoshiaki Omori, 2013. "Determinants of Long-Term Unions: Who Survives the “Seven Year Itch”?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(6), pages 851-891, December.
    6. Sharon Sassler & Soma Roy & Elizabeth Stasny, 2014. "Men’s economic status and marital transitions of fragile families," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 30(3), pages 71-110.
    7. Catherine Kenney & Ryan Bogle, 2010. "Money, Honey if You Want to Get Along With Me: Money Management and Union Dissolution in Marriage and Cohabitation," Working Papers 25, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    8. Wendy Sigle-Rushton & Sara McLanahan, 2002. "The Living Arrangements of New Unmarried Mothers," JCPR Working Papers 262, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    9. Linda J. Waite, 2009. "The Changing Family and Aging Populations," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 35(2), pages 341-346, June.
    10. Cynthia Osborne, 2002. "Diversity Among Unmarried Parents: Human Capital, Attitudes, And Relationship Quality," Working Papers 966, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    11. Nancy Reichman & Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan, 2004. "Effects of child health on parents’ relationship status," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(3), pages 569-584, August.
    12. R. Haveman & B. Wolfe & K. Wilson & E. Peterson, "undated". "Do Teens Make Rational Choices? The Case of Teen Nonmarital Childbearing," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1137-97, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    13. Catherine Kenney, 2003. "Hardship In Married And Cohabiting Parent Households: Do Cohabiting Parents Underinvest In Household Public Goods?," Working Papers 956, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    14. Marcia J. Carlson & Sara S. McLanahan, 2009. "Fathers in Fragile Families," Working Papers 1189, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    15. Avner Ahituv & Robert Lerman, 2011. "Job turnover, wage rates, and marital stability: How are they related?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 221-249, June.
    16. Viviana Salinas, 2016. "Changes in Cohabitation After the Birth of the First Child in Chile," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(3), pages 351-375, June.
    17. Kate H. Choi & Rachel E. Goldberg, 2020. "The Social Significance of Interracial Cohabitation: Inferences Based on Fertility Behavior," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(5), pages 1727-1751, October.
    18. Wolfe, Barbara & Wilson, Kathryn & Haveman, Robert, 2001. "The role of economic incentives in teenage nonmarital childbearing choices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 473-511, September.
    19. Vogler, Carolyn & Brockmann, Michaela & Wiggins, Richard D., 2008. "Managing money in new heterosexual forms of intimate relationships," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 552-576, April.
    20. Elizabeth Fussell, 2002. "The Transition to Adulthood in Aging Societies," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 580(1), pages 16-39, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wop:jopovw:258. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/jcuchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.