Better for Baby? The Retreat From Mid-Pregnancy Marriage and Implications for Parenting and Child Well-being

Abstract

Recent decades have seen a significant decline in mid-pregnancy ("shotgun") marriage, particularly among disadvantaged groups, which has contributed to increasing nonmarital birth rates. Despite public and political concern about this shift, the implications for parenting and child well-being are not known. Drawing on a sample of U.S. black and white mothers with nonmarital conceptions from the NLSY79, our study fills this gap. Using propensity score techniques to address concerns about selection bias, we found that mid-pregnancy marriages were associated with slightly better parenting quality relative to remaining single, although effect sizes were small and limited to marriages that remained intact at the time of child assessment. Mid-pregnancy marriages were not associated with improved children's behavior or cognitive ability. These findings suggest that the retreat from mid-pregnancy marriage may contribute to increasing inequality in parenting resources for children.

Reexamining the Association of Maternal Age and Marital Status at First Birth With Youth Educational Attainment

“…For starters, with the exception of White youth, we do not find much evidence that being born to married mothers is associated with more beneficial educational outcomes, at least for youth born to the youngest mothers. In such instances, being born to young mothers appears to be associated with negative long‐term outcomes regardless of whether mothers had married prior to the birth (e.g., Su et al, ). Our results provide further support for those seeking to defer nonmarital childbearing, particularly among teenagers, where it is generally unintended.…”

“…Children born to unmarried mothers scored significantly lower in math, reading, and comprehension scores when young, relative to those born to married parents (Cooksey, ). Su, Dunifon, and Sassler () found that White children born to unmarried mothers had more behavioral problems and lower cognitive test scores than children born to women who experienced mid‐pregnancy marriages; children born to Black mothers in mid‐pregnancy marriages also had higher reading comprehension scores than those born to unmarried Black mothers, but significant differences disappeared after controlling for maternal sociodemographic factors or accounting for selection into mid‐pregnancy marriage. In both studies, differences in the outcomes of children born to unmarried and married mothers narrowed considerably and in many cases were no longer significant after controlling for maternal characteristics (Cooksey, ; Su et al, ).…”

Cohabitation and Marriage: Complexity and Diversity in Union‐Formation Patterns

“…The biggest advances, however, have probably occurred in the causal analyses of nonexperimental data. Recent research on union formation has relied on difference‐in‐difference models, fixed effects models, and matching models (for a review, see McLanahan, Tach, & Schneider, ; for applications, see Schneider & Hastings, ; Su, Dunifon, & Sassler, ; Tach & Halpern‐Meekin, ).…”

Midpregnancy Marriage and Divorce: Why the Death of Shotgun Marriage Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

“…Based, no doubt, on the well-established decline of midpregnancy marriages as a share of nonmarital conceptions, demographic scholars have paid relatively little attention to midpregnancy-married births (for an exception, see Su et al 2015), and conventional wisdom holds that midpregnancy marriages are obsolete. However (with apologies to Mark Twain), reports of the death of midpregnancy marriage may have been greatly exaggerated.…”