Self-concept and Future Orientations as Possible Pathways Linking Socioeconomic Background and the Risk of Non-marital Child-bearing

• In Event: 381 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Intersectionality and Families

Abstract

A number of social scientists have posited that non-economic factors are likely to play a part in translating structural constraints into unfavorable childbearing outcomes (Moynihan 1965; Becker 1981; Edin and Kefalas 2005; Cherlin 2010; Carbone and Cahn 2014). However, with a few exceptions (e.g., Plotnick and Butler 1991; Plotnick 1992), little empirical research has directly examined whether these non-economic factors, i.e. psychosocial processes, do in fact act as mediators, linking the economic factors to risk of nonmarital birth. I develop and empirically test a theoretical model which considers an array of psychosocial resources as proximal cultural mechanism that are likely to play a part in translating socioeconomic background into unfavorable childbearing outcomes. My preliminary analysis of data from Wave I and Wave IV of the Add Health dataset provides evidence that self-esteem and future orientations may indeed represent one of the pathways through which family background is linked to the risk of nonmarital birth. On the contrary, my analysis shows that various aspects of personal control are unlikely to act as mediating mechanisms.

Author

• Anna V. Muraveva, Ohio State University