Marital Status, Father Acknowledgement, and Birth Outcomes: Does the Maternal Education Matter?

Anna Merklinger-Gruchala () and Maria Kapiszewska
Additional contact information
Anna Merklinger-Gruchala: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University, 30-705 Krakow, Poland
Maria Kapiszewska: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University, 30-705 Krakow, Poland

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-10

Abstract: We evaluated whether the maternal marital status and father acknowledgement (proxy for paternal presence) affect birth weight, and if so, whether the maternal educational attainment modifies this effect. The growing tendency of alternative forms of family structure affects maternal well-being and pregnancy outcome. However, it is not known whether poorer birth outcomes of out-of-wedlock childbearing can be overcome or compensated by maternal education. Using birth registry data, we assessed the impact of maternal civil status and child recognition by the father on birth-weight-for-gestational age (BWGA) z-scores, with respect to maternal education, among Polish mothers (N = 53,528). After standardization, the effect of being unmarried with father acknowledgement (UM-F) vs. married with father acknowledgement (M-F) reduced the BWGA z-score of 0.05 ( p < 0.001), irrespective of educational attainment ( p for interaction = 0.79). However, education differentiated the effect of father acknowledgement across unmarried mothers. BWGA z-scores were significantly lower among the low-educated unmarried group without father acknowledgment (UM-NF) as compared to UM-F (equaled −0.11, p = 0.01). The same effect among the higher-educated group was non-significant ( p = 0.72). Higher maternal education can compensate for the negative effect of a lack of father acknowledgement, but it does not help to overcome the effect of out-of-wedlock stress exposure.

Keywords: birth weight; birth outcomes; paternal acknowledgement; father absence; social support; educational status; marital status; family structure; psychological stress; non-traditionally married mothers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4868/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/6/4868/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:6:p:4868-:d:1093051

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().