TY - JOUR
T1 - Stable aggregate fertility in a time of family change
T2 - a decomposition of trends in American fertility, 1970-1999.
AU - Hayford, Sarah R.
N1 - Funding Information:
This article was prepared while the author was supported by National Institute for Child Health and Development training grants HD-07242-22 to the University of Pennsylvania and HD-O5OO32-O1.1 thank Frank F.FurstenbergJr., Sheelá Kennedy, Hans-Peter Kohler, S. Philip Morgan, and Herbert L. Smith for helpful comments. Any errors are my own.
PY - 2005
Y1 - 2005
N2 - Population-level birth rates in the United States were largely stable between 1970 and 1999. This stability contrasts with rapid change in marriage rates and fertility timing during the same period. In this article, I use decomposition techniques to analyze this seeming paradox. I decompose the general fertility rate into four components: age distribution, marital status, age-specific nonmarital fertility, and age-specific marital fertility. Absent other changes, declining time spent married would have led to substantial decline in fertility. Several factors combined to counterbalance these changes in marital behavior. Among white women in the 1970s and 1980s, marital fertility rates increased at older ages, consistent with a scenario in which women postponed both marriage and childbearing; increased nonmarital birth rates during this period were not a driving factor in overall fertility trends. Increased nonmarital fertility was more important in compensating for declining time spent married among African American women and among white women in the 1990s.
AB - Population-level birth rates in the United States were largely stable between 1970 and 1999. This stability contrasts with rapid change in marriage rates and fertility timing during the same period. In this article, I use decomposition techniques to analyze this seeming paradox. I decompose the general fertility rate into four components: age distribution, marital status, age-specific nonmarital fertility, and age-specific marital fertility. Absent other changes, declining time spent married would have led to substantial decline in fertility. Several factors combined to counterbalance these changes in marital behavior. Among white women in the 1970s and 1980s, marital fertility rates increased at older ages, consistent with a scenario in which women postponed both marriage and childbearing; increased nonmarital birth rates during this period were not a driving factor in overall fertility trends. Increased nonmarital fertility was more important in compensating for declining time spent married among African American women and among white women in the 1990s.
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U2 - 10.1080/19485565.2002.9989096
DO - 10.1080/19485565.2002.9989096
M3 - Article
C2 - 17619628
AN - SCOPUS:34547434845
SN - 1948-5565
VL - 52
SP - 1
EP - 17
JO - Biodemography and Social Biology
JF - Biodemography and Social Biology
IS - 1-2
ER -