This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Journal of Economic Perspectives
  4. Spring 2016
  5. Family Inequality: Diverging Patterns in Marriage, Cohabitation, and Childbearing

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

  • Shelly Lundberg
  • Robert A. Pollak
  • Jenna Stearns
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 30, no. 2, Spring 2016
(pp. 79-102)
Download Full Text PDF
(Complimentary)

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.

Citation

Lundberg, Shelly, Robert A. Pollak, and Jenna Stearns. 2016. "Family Inequality: Diverging Patterns in Marriage, Cohabitation, and Childbearing." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30 (2): 79-102. DOI: 10.1257/jep.30.2.79

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
  • J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
  • J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
  • J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
  • N32 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: 1913-
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment