Marriage (Still) Matters: The Contribution of Demographic Change to Trends in Childlessness in the United States
- 18 April 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Duke University Press in Demography
- Vol. 50 (5), 1641-1661
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-013-0215-3
Abstract
Childlessness in the United States nearly doubled between 1980 and 2000. Other dramatic changes in the U.S. population also took place over this period—notably, women’s average educational attainment increased, and the proportion marrying declined—but the impact of these changes on childlessness has not been formally examined. In this article, I use data from the Current Population Survey Fertility Supplements (1995, 1998, 2004, 2008) and logistic regression and regression-based decomposition techniques to assess the contribution of changes in educational attainment, marriage behavior, and racial/ethnic composition on population levels of childlessness in the United States. Results show that increases in the proportion of women unmarried by age 40 contributed most to the increase in childlessness in the late twentieth century, although these increases were offset somewhat by increased childbearing among unmarried women. The rising proportion of women with a college degree also explained a substantial amount of the increase in childless women.Keywords
This publication has 43 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Quality of Male Fertility Data in Major U.S. SurveysDemography, 2011
- The Correspondence Between Fertility Intentions and Behavior in the United StatesPopulation and Development Review, 2010
- The Importance of Motherhood Among Women in the Contemporary United StatesGender & Society, 2008
- Historical Trends in ChildlessnessJournal of Family Issues, 2007
- Staying Back and Dropping Out: The Relationship Between Grade Retention and School DropoutSociology of Education, 2007
- Childlessness Among Older Women in the United States: Trends and ProfilesJournal of Marriage and Family, 2006
- Characteristic Features of Modern American FertilityPopulation and Development Review, 1996
- The Risks of Reproductive Impairment in the Later Years of ChildbearingAnnual Review of Sociology, 1990
- The Effects of Health of the Completed Fertility of Nonwhite and White U.S. Women born Between 1867 and 1935Journal of Social History, 1979
- Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor MarketsInternational Economic Review, 1973