This study combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to understand the role of marriage and fertility in the lives of young adults. Specifically, the study investigates the temporal and theoretical disconnect that has emerged between marriage and fertility among low-income individuals. Using secondary data analysis techniques, Gibson-Davis has found that positive changes in earnings increase the odds of marriage, but decrease the odds of fertility. Her results suggest that for women with bachelor’s degrees, family formation patterns in the 2000s resemble those of the 1970s. For women with lower levels of education, however, changes to family structure have been dramatic—less than half the children in this cohort were born into marriages that existed before the child’s conception. She has also found that shotgun cohabitations (those formed after a child is conceived but before the child is born) are of much lower quality and shorter duration than shotgun marriages, suggesting that the marital nature of the relationship holds more weight than when the relationship was formed. She also found that while the majority of unwed mothers will eventually marry, the odds of an unmarried mother marrying have dropped by more than 25 percent between the 1950s and 1980s. Odds of marriage are particularly low for black mothers who gave birth after 1990. In her qualitative analysis, which consisted of in-depth interviews with 70 unmarried, childless young adults who have not attended college, she has found that marriage and fertility are viewed as separate endpoints, and are conceptually distinct from each other.
This study combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to understand the role of marriage and fertility in the lives of young adults. Specifically, the study investigates the temporal and theoretical disconnect that has emerged between marriage and fertility among low-income individuals.
