The Intersection Between Childbearing and Union Status
Projects
The educational gradient of nonmarital childbearing across Europe:
emergence of a pattern
of disadvantage?
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Members
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Brienna Perelli-Harris, Wendy Sigle-Rushton, Michaela Kreyenfeld, Trude Lappegård, Caroline Berghammer, Renske Keizer |
| General description | Nearly every European country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in 8 countries across Europe. In all countries studied, birth risks within cohabitation demonstrated a negative educational gradient. When directly comparing cohabiting fertility with marital fertility, the negative educational gradient persists in all countries except Italy, although differences were not significant in Austria, France, and Germany. To explain these findings, we present an alternative explanation for the increase in childbearing within cohabitation that goes beyond the explanation of the Second Demographic Transition and provides a new interpretation of the underlying mechanisms that may influence childbearing within cohabitation. |
| Presentations | Perelli-Harris, B., W. Sigle-Rushton,
T. Lappegård, R. Keizer, M. Kreyenfeld, C. Berghammer:
The educational gradient of nonmarital childbearing in Europe:
emergence of a pattern of disadvantage? Education and Demography.
Vienna Institute of Demography, Vienna, Austria. 30 Nov. - Dec.
1, 2009. Perelli-Harris, B., W. Sigle-Rushton, T. Lappegård, R. Keizer, M. Kreyenfeld: The educational gradient of nonmarital childbearing in Europe: emergence of a pattern of disadvantage? International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. Marrakech, Morocco. 27 Sept. -Oct. 2, 2009. |
| Publications | Perelli-Harris, B., W. Sigle-Rushton, M. Kreyenfeld, T. Lappegård, R. Keizer, C. Berghammer (2010): "The educational gradient of nonmarital childbearing in Europe." Population and Development Review. 36(4): 775-801. |