Childhood Disadvantage, Nonmarital Childbearing, and Birth Intendedness

• In Event: 450 - Regular Session. Fertility: Childbearing Decisions in Family Context

Abstract

Scholarship on family change in the United States has advanced our understanding of the causes and consequences of nonmarital fertility. However, it has paid limited attention to differential nonmarital childbearing behavior by birth intendedness. Building on a variety of socialization theories, this paper proposes childhood disadvantage as a key determinant of women’s intended and unintended nonmarital childbearing. This study hypothesizes that childhood disadvantage is associated with intended nonmarital childbearing through social learning and detachment processes, while it is associated with unintended nonmarital childbearing through social control, insecure bonding, and self-regulation processes. Results from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data show that family instability, low quality parenting, and a lower level of cognitive development increase the risk of an intended nonmarital first birth, whereas exposure to poverty, a lower level of cognitive stimulation, and a lower level of socioemotional development increase the risk of an unintended nonmarital first birth. Various domains of childhood disadvantage thus represent distinct socialization processes that are linked to unmarried women’s birth intention and eventual childbearing. Given these findings, this paper suggests the need to take into account the differential roles of childhood disadvantage in increasingly heterogeneous fertility behavior.

Author

• Dohoon Lee, New York University