A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS OF MARITAL AND NONMARITAL FERTILITY IN THE UNITED-STATES

This study examines the role of a wide range of community characteristics in determining the risk of married and nonmarried nonblack women having a live birth. We find that context affects the risk of both a marital and nonmarital birth, although the number of contextual influences is greater for nonmarried women. For married women, the factors that affect the likelihood of a birth are: the extent of full-time female labor-force participation, percent white-collar workers, and percent females in the community who are separated or divorced. Contextual factors affecting the risk of an out-of-wedlock birth include: the female unemployment rate; median housing value; percent females separated or divorced; percent females of childbearing age; the sex ratio of the never married population, and the child/woman ratio for women aged 15-24. Almost all these community characteristics operate independently of individual-level characteristics of the woman.