Condemned or Condoned? Pre-Marital Childbearing among Young African Women and the Transition to Marriage

• In Event: 231 - Section on Sociology of Population Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. Contraceptive Use, Fertility, and Union Formation: New Insights

Abstract

We use DHS data from 29 African countries to analyze whether non-marital childbearing bears negative consequences for African women. We specifically analyze whether non-marital childbearing influences women’s future marriage, which is seen as key to a successful transition to adulthood. Based on the common perspective that unmarried African women enjoy considerable "sexual freedom", and non-marital childbearing has few repercussions, non-marital childbearing should have no influence on women’s future marital prospects. Conversely, extending the counter-perspective in the literature that there are, in fact, social constraints on non-marital sex, and that non-marital childbearing bears stigma, it should disadvantage women in the marriage market. Findings from country-specific hazard models challenge the common notion that non-marital childbearing is inconsequential for African women. Instead, the results suggest that there are socially meaningful expectations surrounding the context in which sex and childbearing should occur, and that deviation from these expectations bear meaningful consequences.

Authors

• Emily Smith-Greenaway, University of Southern California

• Shelley Clark, McGill University