Nonmarital Fertility, Union History, and Women’s Wealth

• In Event: 546 - Section on Sociology of Population Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Families and Health

Abstract

We use over twenty years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – 1979 to examine wealth trajectories among women who were never-married at the time of their first birth. We compare wealth across mothers according to union type and union stability, and distinguish partners by biological parentage of the firstborn child. Net of controls for education, race-ethnicity, and family background, single mothers who enter into stable marriages with the biological father of the firstborn child experience significant wealth advantages over time (almost $3,000 per year) relative to those who later marry a different partner, cohabit, or remain unpartnered. A second set of analyses comparing women with nonmarital versus marital first births show that women with marital first births accrue almost three times the wealth per year ($7,826) as single mothers who later form stable marriages to the biological father ($2,835). We conclude that marriage, paternity, and union stability have distinct roles for wealth accumulation following a nonmarital birth.

Authors

• Matthew A. Painter, University of Wyoming

• Adrianne Frech, University of Akron

• Kristi L. Williams, The Ohio State University