His' and Hers' Baggage: Whose Weighs More? Gender and Union Formation following a Non-Coresidential First Birth

Bart Stykes, Bowling Green State University

Slightly less than half of nonmarital births occur to non-coresidential couples, yet we know little about non-coresidential fertility. We examine the formation and stability of coresidential unions after a nonmarital, non-coresidential birth. Our particular focus is on gender, as unmarried mothers and fathers likely face very different marriage markets. We use the 2006-2010 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth, which collects detailed fertility information for both men and women for non-coresidential births in the five years preceding the survey (n=619). Our preliminary findings do not show statistically significant gender differences in whether a union was formed, the type of union formed, or the stability of that union, although men who marry do so sooner than women who marry. The lack of differences is interesting, though, given pronounced differences in child coresidence. Our planned analyses will explore the formation and stability of unions in multivariate event history models.