Personal Preference, Access to Resources, and Control over Family Formation Outcomes

• In Event: 054 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 19. Union Formation

Abstract

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this paper explores the relationship between individual people’s family formation preferences, their personal socioeconomic resources, and their subsequent family formation outcomes. I find that although the stated preference for or against having children while unmarried strongly predicts both whether a respondent goes on to have a nonmarital first birth, and his or her sequencing of marriage and cohabitation vis-à-vis first birth, its predictive power is largely superseded by a stronger relationship with educational attainment. I argue that by tracking people into different marriage markets, and by shaping income levels and potential for asset accumulation, personal educational resources function to circumscribe individual family formation options. Having more resources enhances high-SES individuals’ ability to align their family formation outcomes with their own preferences, while having fewer resources constrains lower-SES individuals’ ability to do so.

Author

• Rachel Shattuck, University of Maryland-College Park