The partnership context of childbearing

Júlia Mikolai

Chapter Chapter 21 in Research Handbook on Partnering across the Life Course, 2025, pp 254-264 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: With non-marital cohabitation, union dissolution, and repartnering becoming increasingly common in the last few decades, partnership dynamics have become more complex than in the past. This implies that the share of children born to married parents has declined and, conversely, the share of children born to single, cohabiting, or repartnered parents has increased. This chapter begins with a description of the trends in non-marital childbearing across European and other Western societies. I briefly discuss the potential reasons for cross-national differences in these patterns and the main competing explanations underlying the observed patterns. This is followed by an overview of empirical research on the partnership context in which children are born in contemporary European and Western societies and potential socio-economic inequalities in these trends. The concluding section highlights gaps and directions for future research.

Keywords: Childbearing; Cohabitation; Marriage; Singlehood; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803923376
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