Economic Resources, Supportive Relationships
Linked to Marriage Among Unwed Parents
Both economic and interpersonal factors
play a role in the likelihood that unwed parents will marry
by their child’s first birthday, according to an article published
in the latest issue of the journal Demography.
The Bush administration has proposed spending
more than $1 billion over five years on programs to promote
healthy marriages among low-income couples, including improving
interpersonal communication skills among unmarried parents.
“Couples with higher education and earnings
were more likely to marry,” reported Marcia
Carlson of Columbia University, who conducted the analysis
with Sara McLanahan of Princeton University and Paula England
of Northwestern University.
“The emotional quality of relationships
also played a powerful role—particularly both partners’ perception
that their relationship was supportive,” she said.
The findings are from the five-year ongoing
Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which interviewed
about 3,700 unmarried parents at hospitals in 20 U.S. cities
shortly after their child’s birth. About 3,300 of the couples
participated in a follow-up interview about one year later.
About nine percent had married by their child’s first birthday.
The researchers found that “supportiveness
helps relationships more than conflict hurts them.”
In supportive relationships, partners reported
that they often encouraged each other, were willing to compromise
when they disagreed, expressed affection, and avoided insults
or criticism.
The researchers measured conflict by determining
how frequently during the previous month couples reported
arguing about money, time together, sex, the pregnancy, drinking
or drug use, or infidelity.
They also found that women who trusted men
to be sexually faithful were more likely to marry. Couples
who believed marriage was better for children and superior
to living together were more likely to marry as well.
Fathers’ problems with alcohol or drug use,
as well as higher levels of conflict in the relationship,
discouraged cohabitation. Physical violence contributed to
couples’ breaking up.
“Increasing both parents’ economic capacities,
reducing conflict and violence, addressing substance abuse
problems, encouraging positive views of marriage—and especially
promoting supportive behaviors between partners—could help
keep unmarried couples together and encourage marriage,” according
to the researchers.
At the same time, the researchers note that
any policy changes or new programs would likely have only
a modest impact on marriage rates.
The researchers also found that the fathers’
children by previous partners—but not the mothers’—were a
strong deterrent to marriage.
“This was surprising given that children
tend to live with their mothers,” said Carlson. “Having other
children may keep these fathers from investing in their new
children emotionally or financially.”
Programs that promote marriage should pay
attention to the complicated family dynamics that arise from
having children that may be “his, hers or ours,” the researchers
suggest.
Many of the findings were encouraging, suggesting
that a stable family life was possible for some unmarried
couples and their children, noted Carlson.
Unmarried couples who were living together
at the time of the baby’s birth were most stable. By the child’s
first birthday, 75 percent were still living together – about
15 percent were legally married to each other and 60 percent
were still cohabiting.
The research was supported by the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Demography
is the peer-reviewed journal published by the Population Association
of America.
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The full article, titled “Union Formation
in Fragile Families” is available on www.prb.org/cpipr. Click on articles from
journal Demography. Or call the Center for Public
Information on Population Research, 202-939-5414. The Center,
a project of the Population Reference Bureau, is funded by
the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development.
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