Union Stability and Stepfamily Fertility in Austria, Finland, France & West Germany

Authors: Henz, Ursula¹; Thomson, Elizabeth²

Source: European Journal of Population/ Revue europenne de Dmographie, Volume 21, Number 1, March 2005 , pp. 3-29(27)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

In this paper, we test the hypothesis that unique effects of stepfamily composition on union fertility are confounded with differences between stepfamilies and couples without stepchildren in the risk of union disruption. We use birth and union histories from Fertility and Family Surveys in Austria, Finland, France and West Germany. The risks of a union birth and separation are modeled simultaneously, allowing for the potential effects of unobserved predispositions to have a child or to separate on the other event. We test hypotheses drawn from the value of first and second shared births to couples: Net of the couple’s combined parity, the birth risk will be greater if the child is (a) the first in a union, (b) the first biological child for one of the partners, or (c) the second child in a union.

Keywords: fertility; stepfamily; value of children; Mots clés: familles recomposées; fécondité; valeur des enfants

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10680-004-7267-4

Affiliations: 1: Department of Sociology, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK, Email: U.Henz@lse.ac.uk 2: Department of Sociology and Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA,

Publication date: 2005-03-01