MARRIAGE AND THE MARITAL CONTEXT OF FERTILITY

几十年来，家庭形成的模式发生了巨大的变化 第二次世界大战以来：离婚率和分居率上升 几乎是线性的；第一次婚姻已经转向更年长的年龄；以及更多 情侣们从同居开始他们的关系，而不是婚姻。 这个项目的目的是提高对 同居对婚姻的发生和时机、生育能力和 婚姻破裂和孩子对婚姻稳定性的影响。我们 将解决两个基本问题：(1)两厢情愿的结合是否就像 没有合法性的婚姻，还是它们从根本上不同？ 人们选择同居而不是结婚的原因是什么 为什么有些人解散了这些结合，有些人继续结婚呢？ 我们检验了两个共同影响这些问题的关键假设：(A) 同居经历了和婚姻一样的破裂过程。(B) 双方同意的婚姻中的生育遵循相同的过程 婚内生育。我们认为最初的选择取决于 部分，关于未来父母的选择和个人对 两国关系的未来。如果我们发现两者之间没有区别 双方自愿和婚姻关系的稳定模式和模式 生育，那么我们有确凿的证据表明，在两个非常 重要的是，同居结合等同于婚姻。我们 解决这些最初的选择、稳定性和生育率问题 一系列模型，共同提供角色的详细情况 当代美国社会中双方自愿的结合。这项研究的数据 来自1972届全国纵向学习和 收入动态小组研究，

Patterns of family formation have changed dramatically over the decades since the Second World War: Rates of divorce and separation have risen almost linearly; first marriages have shifted to older ages; and more couples begin their relationships with cohabitation rather than marriage. This project is intended to improve understanding of the influence that cohabitation has on the occurrence and timing of marriage, fertility, and marital disruption and that children have on stability of marriages. We will address two basic questions: (1) Are consensual unions just like marriage without the legality or are they fundamentally different? (2) What are the reasons that people choose cohabitation rather than marriage, and why do some dissolve these unions and some proceed to marry? We test two key hypotheses that together bear on these questions: (a) Cohabitations follow the same process of disruption that marriages do. (b) Fertility within consensual unions follows the same process as childbearing within marriage. We see the initial choice as depending, in part, on choices about prospective parenthood and on the person's view of the future of the relationship. If we find no difference between consensual and marital unions in patterns of stability and patterns of childbearing, then we have substantial evidence that, in two very important ways, cohabitational unions are equivalent to marriage. We address these issues of initial choice, stability, and fertility in a series of models that, together will provide detailed picture of the role of consensual unions in contemporary U.S. society. Data for the study come from the National Longitudinal Study of the Class of 1972 and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics,