Anderson, Kermyt G., and Bobbi Low. 2003. Nonmarital first births and women's life histories. In The Biodemography of Fertility, J. Rodgers and H.P. Kohler, eds., pp. 57-86. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
This paper draws on
evolutionary
life history theory to examine nonmarital births in the context of
women's
ability to secure male parental investment for their offspring. We
expect
women who do not obtain firm commitment from a partner at the time of
first
birth to have lower lifetime fertility, greater probability of never
marrying,
and to marry later than women who obtain secure male commitment before
or around the time of their first birth. We examine the relationships
between
type of first birth and life history outcomes using retrospective
marital
and reproductive histories from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics
(PSID).
The sample used for analysis consists of 2,684 parous women who are age
45 or older and have thus completed their reproductive careers. The
results
are consistent with an evolutionary perspective, and highlight the
importance
of male parental investment in women's reproductive strategies.
Paper
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Last modified: 05-30-03
by Kermyt G. Anderson