Childbearing after Remarriage

The institutionalization and pace of fertility in American stepfamilies

“…Comparisons of fertility levels in stepfamilies and intact families find that the presence of stepchildren decreases fertility in marriages and cohabitations (Bumpass 1984a;Lillard and Waite 1993;Loomis and Landale 1994;Stewart 2002;Toulemon 1997;Wineberg 1990Wineberg , 1992; but see Griffith et al 1985). These studies generally document an inverse gradation between the number of stepchildren and fertility levels, highlighting the importance of studying childbearing patterns by birth order.…”

“…Previous research also finds that younger children are more likely than their older counterparts to obtain a half sibling when their parents remarry (Buber and Prskawetz 2000;Bumpass 1984a;Griffith et al 1985;Loomis and Landale 1994;Wineberg 1990Wineberg , 1992. This implies that a large proportion of stepfamilies acquire a mutual child soon after remarriage, suggesting that there is motivation for women in stepfamilies to "catch up" on their lost reproductive time outside of marriage by having another child sooner in the new marriage.…”

The implications of marital instability for a woman’s fertility: Empirical evidence from Italy

“…Analyses with data only on women's children show mixed effects. On the one hand, some studies have found a clearly negative association between the risk of childbearing and the previous parity (Rindfuss and Bumpass 1977;Clarke et al 1993;Lillard, Panis, and Upchurch 1994); on the other hand, other analyses have found a non-linear negative effect of such a parity (Wineberg 1990;Jefferies, Berrington, and Diamond 2000), while still others have demonstrated no effect (Griffith, Koo, and Suchindran 1985;Diamond, Clarke, and Clarke 1995). These latter results suggest that the effect of stepchildren may not be as strong as we could expect, and that the first shared child of a second union may have a unique value which interacts with the value of those children born during the first marriage.…”

Step-families and Childbearing Desires in Europe

“…As a result, among couples with only shared children, three-child families are unusual and larger families are rare. Thus, if one simply estimated the effects of having stepchildren or the number of stepchildren on the risk of a first or second shared birth, the effects are likely to be negative; the more stepchildren, the greater are costs of having another child (e.g., Bumpass 1984, Wineberg 1990, Lillard and Waite 1993, Loomis and Landale 1994, Stewart 2002. Only when we find that the number of stepchildren, especially two or more stepchildren, has no effect on the risk of a first shared birth (e.g., Griffith, Koo and Suchindran 1985, Toulemon 1997, Vikat et al 1999), may we infer that the shared child has unique value to the couple.…”