A Competing-Risk Analysis of Cohabiting First Births

• In Event: 2450 - Differentials in Fertility Timing and Fertility Preferences

Abstract

In this paper, we report findings from continuous-time, competing-risk analyses of first births to U.S. women in a first cohabiting union. Our analyses explicitly acknowledge the multiple-decrement nature of the underlying processes in that the censoring events of a marriage or union dissolution will remove women from the risk of a cohabiting first birth. We use data from the 2006--2010 and 2011--2015 National Survey of Family Growth to provide a descriptive account of first births within first cohabiting unions to U.S. women over the last few decades. Consistent with previous research, our preliminary findings show a sizable retreat from marriage. But our analyses also reveal that this retreat from marriage did not lead to sizable increases in the probability of a first birth within a first cohabiting union because declines in marriage were offset by increases in union dissolutions. In analyses that we will conduct between now and ASA, we will add to these preliminary results by conducting a series of analyses of counterfactual trends similar to those in England, Wu, and Shafer (2013). More generally, our paper contributes to ongoing empirical and theoretical debates by underscoring a gap in most current accounts of nonmarital fertility and the retreat from marriage, which is that when encountering barriers to marriage, women in a cohabiting union or nonmarital relationship can also opt to exit the union or relationship.

Authors

• Lawrence L. Wu, New York University

• Monica Lisette Caudillo, University of Maryland

• Paula England, New York University

• Nicholas D.E. Mark, New York University