The impact of marital dissolution and repartnering on childbearing in Britain

Abstract

The thesis starts by assessing the proportion of British births that occur after marital dissolution and the contribution of such births to non-marital fertility in Britain, information that cannot be obtained from vital registration data. In the early 1990s, around 13% of British births occurred following marital dissolution, with less than half of these occurring within remarriage; however, post-dissolution births did not make a large contribution to the big increases in the non-marital fertility ratio seen in Britain during the 1980s.

Second, the thesis examines the lifetime fertility of continuously married women with those who have experienced marital dissolution and those who subsequently repartner, finding the latter two groups to be more diverse in terms of completed family size. Many theoretical issues are raised here, as the causal links between fertility and partnership behaviour are complex and multi-directional. Modelling both completed family size and age at last birth show that observed differences in fertility behaviour between the different groups are often a result of the characteristics of those selected into marital dissolution or repartnering, rather than being direct effects of marital dissolution or repartnering on fertility behaviour.

The focus then shifts to childbearing following marital dissolution and it is estimated that around 45% of British women who experience marital dissolution will subsequently have a birth. A proportional hazard model shows that younger women, those who have a pre-school child, and those who form a new union with a bachelor are the most likely to experience a birth, while the association between parity and subsequent childbearing is small. Logistic models find similar factors to be associated with the current fertility intentions of repartnered women, although the majority of such women are not intending to have a birth. Compared to women in first marriages, repartnered women at parities zero and one are less likely to be intending to have a birth, while repartnered women with two or more children are more likely to be intending a birth than similar married women. This suggests that the decision-making context for repartnered women is different from that of women in first marriages and supports the earlier finding that women who experience marital dissolution are less likely to conform to the two-child norm than those whose marriage does not end in dissolution.

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