Family Inequality: Diverging Patterns in Marriage, Cohabitation, and Childbearing

Abstract

Popular discussions of changes in American families over the past 60 years have revolved around the “retreat from marriage.” Concern has focused on increasing levels of nonmarital childbearing, as well as falling marriage rates that stem from both increases in the age at first marriage and greater marital instability. Often lost in these discussions is the fact that the decline of marriage has coincided with a rise in cohabitation. Many “single” Americans now live with a domestic partner and a substantial fraction of “single” mothers are cohabiting, often with the child's father. The share of women who have ever cohabited has nearly doubled over the past 25 years, and the majority of nonmarital births now occur to cohabiting rather than to unpartnered mothers at all levels of education. The emergence of cohabitation as an alternative to marriage has been a key feature of the post–World War II transformation of the American family. These changes in the patterns and trajectories of family structure have a strong socioeconomic gradient. The important divide is between college graduates and others: individuals who have attended college but do not have a four-year degree have family patterns and trajectories that are very similar to those of high school graduates.

Why Have Americans Changed Their Minds about Premarital Sex?

“…Age at first marriage increased, cohabitation became more common, and divorce rates remained high in the new Millennium (Lundberg et al, 2016;Stevenson & Wolfers, 2007). This led to a modest decrease in the share of the population that is married and a modest increase in the share that is unmarried between 2002 and 2014 (see Table 1).…”

Racial Differences in Transitions to Marriage for Unmarried Mothers

“…In recent decades, there has been a steady decline in marriage rates, steep rise in divorce and non-marital childbearing in the US that have motivated discussions around the retreat from marriage , eliciting concerns about the welfare of children in single parent households and intergenerational transmission of poverty and inequality (Bianchi 1999; Lundberg et al 2016; McLanahan 1985; McLanahan and Casper 1995; Spain and Bianchi 1996). The proportion of nonmarital births rose dramatically from 5% in 1960 to 20% in 1983 to around 40% in 2014.…”

“…While only 5% of nonmarital births in 1980 were to college graduates compared to 24% for high school graduates, this statistic had dramatically risen to 11% for college graduates compared to 58% for high school graduates by 2013 (Brown et al 2015, Lundberg et al 2016). …”

“…The rise of cohabitation as an alternative to marriage has been characteristic of the post-World War II transition of the American family (Lundberg et al 2016). However, cohabitation has also served as a transient stage before marriage for some families (Manning and Smock 1995).…”

“…While this family model prototype was representative of the post-World War II era, it offered little insight into why individuals marry instead of cohabit. Thus, these models did not account for cohabitation as a widely acceptable substitute for marriage or remaining single in the late 1970s (Lundberg et al 2016). With the substantial increase in labor force participation rates of women and declining gender wage-gaps, specialization of market work and household production decreased dramatically in the past 60 years which has been associated with an increase in the opportunity cost of rearing children and likelihood of divorce (Lundberg and Pollak 2007).…”