James A. Sweet

The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage.

This analysis examines trends in young adults in union formation comparing trends in marriage to trends when cohabitation is included as well as marriage. It then documents the characteristics of cohabiting couples in terms of the duration of the union presence of children perceived stability marriage plans and opinions about cohabitation. Finally it analyzes several marriage-related attitude items among all unmarried persons under age 35. The US National Survey of Families and Households provides data on a national sample of 13017 respondents. The large increases in the proportion never married among persons in their early 20s is commonly interpreted to mean that young people are staying single longer. Because of cohabitation however being unmarried is not synonymous with being single. Young people are setting up housekeeping with partners of the opposite sex at almost as early an age as they did before marriage rates declined. 3/4 of the decline in the proportion of women married by age 25 was offset by increased cohabitation. The role of cohabitation in replacing early marriage is most pronounced for persons who have not completed high school. Cohabiting relationships tend to have been formed recently although 1 in 5 have been cohabiting for 5 years or more. Most cohabitors expect to marry their partner although there is a surprisingly high level of disagreement among partners about this.

National Estimates of Cohabitation

Data from the 1987–1988 National Survey of Families and Households are used to provide national estimates of cohabitation trends and levels. The rapid increase since around 1970 is documented over both birth cohorts and marriage cohorts. Almost half of the persons in their early 30s and half of the recently married have cohabited. Changes in the proportion ever married are compared with changes in the proportion who have either married or cohabited. Much of the decline in marriage has been offset by increased living together without being married. The stability of unions of various types is compared. Cohabitations end very quickly in either marriage or disruption. About 60 percent of all first cohabitations result in marriage. Cohabiting unions and marriages preceded by cohabitation are much more likely to break up than are unions initiated by marriage. Multivariate analysis reveals higher rates of cohabitation among women, whites, persons who did not complete high school, and those from families who received welfare or who lived in a single-parent family while growing up.

Differentials in Marital Instability: 1970

Using national data on white ever-married women under forty-five, differentials in marital instability are examined for several of the wifes characteristics at first marriage and for the couples combined age, education and religion. Dummy variable multiple regression is used to adjust for the effects of differing durations since first marriage and to obtain effects for each variable net of other variables. With other variables controlled, an inverse age at marriage-instability relationship persists; and differences in marital stability by education appear largely attributable to differences in age at marriage by education. Other characteristics we considered are the wifes religion while growing up, whether she grew up on a farm, whether she lived with both parents at age fourteen, whether she was pregnant before her first marriage and whether her first husband had been married before. When we included the husbands variables, we found husbands age at marriage and education to have a negative relationship with marital instability. Higher instability for intermarriage is found among couples divergent in age or religion; only extreme differences in education are associated with higher instability.

The Changing Character of Stepfamilies: Implications of Cohabitation and Nonmarital Childbearing*

Divorce, nonmarital childbearing, and cohabitation are reshaping family experience in the United States. Because of these changes, our traditional definitions of families decreasingly capture the social units of interest. We have noted how a significant proportion of officially defined single-parent families actually are two-parent unmarried families. The present paper expands on this perspective with respect to stepfamilies. We must broaden our definition of stepfamilies to include cohabitations involving a child of only one partner, and must recognize the large role of nonmarital childbearing in the creation of stepfamilies. We find that cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing have been important aspects of stepfamily experience for at least two decades, and that this is increasingly so. To define stepfamilies only in terms of marriage clearly underestimates both the level and the trend in stepfamily experience: when cohabitation is taken into account, about two-fifths of all women and 30% of all children are likely to spend some time in a stepfamily.

Changing patterns of remarriage.

After briefly reviewing recent trends in US remarriage rates this paper focuses on the variation in these rates as measured in the 1980 and 1985 June Current Population Surveys. For data quality reasons it focuses on rates observed in the 5 years before each of the surveys. It begins by discussing the demographic composition of separation cohorts as a factor affecting remarriage rates and ultimately the structure of remarriages. It next examines proportional hazard estimates of differentials in remarriage rates. Finally using life-table procedures it draws out some of the important implications of differing remarriage rates by estimating expected proportions who will ever remarry. The rate of remarriage has declined among divorced women of all ages though the declines were greatest among women under age 25 at the time of divorce--56% between 1965 and 1980. The slight recovery since 1980 may well reflect the changing age structure of divorced women under age 25 produced by the radical drop in 1st marriage rates of women under age 25. Increasing cohabitation over the last 2 decades may also have played some role in declining remarriage rates. Only 15% of recent marital disruptions occurred to women over the age of 40. Substantially lower remarriage rates are observed for women whose 1st marriage lasted longer but these effects are completely eliminated when other variables in particular age at separation are controlled. Age factors are what matters for remarriage and not experience or habits. The findings indicate that remarriage is approximately a quarter lower among women with children than among childless women. Remarriage is less common among blacks than among whites.

Those ubiquitous fertility trends: United States, 1945-1979

1970-79 US fertility trends among differnet racial, regional, age, educational, parity, and socioeconomic subgroups in the population were examined, using own children data from the 1976 Survey of Income and Education (SIE) and the March Current Population Surveys (CPS) from 1968-80. In addition, cross-sectional differences in fertility for the subgroups were compared for 1970 and 1976, using multiple regression analysis. 1st, the appropriateness of using fertility rates obtained from own children data was assessed by comparing fertility rates obtained from the SIE data with those derived from vital statistic and census data. The comparative analysis confirmed that the SIE data yielded an accurate estimate of period fertility rates for currently married women, provided the subgroup samples were sufficiently large. CPS fertility estimates were also judged to be accurate if data from 3 adjacent survey years was pooled to increase sample size. Fertility trends for 5 educational groups were assessed separately for 1967-73. During this periold, there was a marked decline in fertility for all 5 groups; for the group with 5-8 years of education the decline was only 14%, but for the other 4 groups, which included women with 9-16 or more years of education, the decline in fertility ranged from 26-29%. In assessing the 1970-76 trends, the sample was restricted to own children, aged 3 years or less, of currently married women, under 40 years of age. Among whites, there was an overall 20% decline in fertility between 1970-76 and an overall fertility increase of about 2% between 1976-79. These trends were observed in all 28 white subgroups. A similar pattern was observed for blacks. There was an overall fertility decline of 24% between 1970-76, and this decline was apparent for all subgroups except women with college degrees. Betwen 1976-79, black fertility rates, unlike white rates, continued to decline, but the rate of decline was only 3%. Furthermore, the decline in almost all the black subgroups was markedly less than in the 1970-76 periold, and for many of the subgroups the trend was reversed and fertility increased. In summary, the fertility trends noted for 1970-79 were pervasive for almost all the subgroups for both blacks and whites; i.e., there was a marked decline in fertility between 1970-76 and than a reversal or slowing down of the decline during the 1976-79 for all black and white subgroups. Cross-sectional fertility differences in the subgroups in 1970 and in 1979 were quite similar, and fertility rates differed markedly for the separate subgroups. These differences do not, of course, explain the pervasive trends observed in the analysis of the fertility rates over time. A similar study assessing fertility trends among subgroups for the early 1940s through the late 1960s also revealed the pervasive nature of period fertility trends. Demographers have not as yet been able to explain these shifts in fertility that cut across all subgroups in the US and which also characterize the period fertility rates in other developed countries. Tables provided information on 1) total fertility rates by educational level and by geographical region for 1945-1975; 2) % change in number of own children less than 3 years of age among women under age 40 by maternal age, maternal education, initial parity, geographical region, and husbands income; and 3) mean number of own children less than 3 years of age among women under age 40 by maternal age, education, parity, region, and husbands income.

THE LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF SEPARATED, WIDOWED, AND DIVORCED MOTHERS

When her marriage is disrupted a woman must make some decision about where to live. A basic component of residential choice is the decision whether to live alone as the head of a household, to move in with other relatives, or to share a household with nonrelatives. Such a choice is constrained by the availability of relatives, and by whether or not the woman can afford to live alone. The question of living arrangements is one important component of the economic status of women experiencing marital disruption, and the choice between heading a household or sharing someone else’s household influences the differential incidence among population subgroups of the female-headed family.The living arrangements of mothers without husbands are investigated cross-sectionally using the 1/1000 sample of the 1960 census. Attention is focused on what characteristics (age, family composition, education, race, and income) are associated with household headship. Among women who are not household heads, we examine the type of living arrangement from data on “relationship to head of household”. The paper includes some discussion of the ambiguity of the income-living-arrangements relationship, and some discussion of the “tenure” status (owner versus renter) of women in disrupted marital statuses.

Family composition and the labor force activity of American wives

This is a study of the employment patterns of American wives in relation to the composition of their families. The data are taken from the 1960 United States Census, both from published tabulations and the 1/1000 sample. The population studied is non-Negro, non-farm, married, husband present women who are under the age of sixty. The methods of analysis used include the comparison of employment rates among subpopulations and a dummy variable regression technique. Aspects of family composition studied include age of the youngest child (in single years in order to determine whether there are discontinuities in the rates of employment when youngest children enter school, etc.), number of children in the family, and the presence of other relatives in the family. The paper concludes with a discussion of the meaning of family status differentials in employment including differential preferences for employment, differential fertility experience, and differential demands on the mother’s time. Some discussion of the use of cross section data of this sort to infer life cycle patterns of employment is included.

components of change in the number of households: 1970–1980

There was an increase from 62.8 to 79.1 million households in the United States during the 1970s. The number of households increased much more rapidly than the population. This paper decomposes this growth in the number of households into components associated with changing age and marital status composition and changing age by marital status-specific propensities to form households. About one-third of the increase in the number of households was due to increased age by marital status propensity to form households, and two-thirds was due to shifts in the age by marital status distribution and population growth. The increased propensity to form households had its major impact at ages under 35, and primarily among never-married persons. The composition component had its primary impact at ages 25–44 as a result of the baby boom, and also because of the increased fractions never married and separated and divorced.

Social background and breastfeeding among American mothers.

Using 1965 National Fertility Survey data, the national trends and patterns of breastfeeding among American mothers are examined. A review of the literature finds most results of studies to be inconsistent. In this study the total sample was 4918 mothers with first births. The general conclusion is that breastfeeding has been declining since the turn of the century. 50% breastfed their first child. Black and Latin American mothers are about 7 points above the average. Northwest European (English and German) mothers had higher rates than mothers from Irish, Slavic, French or Italian backgrounds. Being a Catholic makes a mother less likely to breastfeed her first baby for most all nationality groups except Latin American. Farm mothers were much more likely to have breastfed their first baby than nonfarm mothers, 64% to 49%. The South and West geographical districts were 6-8 points above the grand mean while the Midwest and Northeast are below it. Only 40% of mothers in the Northeast breastfeed. By education, the lowest educational category (6 years or less) have the highest breastfeeding rates, 74%, which declines to high school graduates who have a low of 44%, then rises with a college education. The college educated group is the next highest category after the lowest educated group. White collar workers and service employed were the highest groups among occupations of those breastfeeding.