Should We Get Married? The Effect of Parents' Marriage on Out-of-Wedlock Children

Shirley Liu and Frank Heiland ()

No 720, Working Papers from University of Miami, Department of Economics

Abstract: Using a representative sample of children all born to unwed parents drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and a potential outcome approach to account for self-selection into marriage, we investigate whether marriage after childbearing has a causal effect on early child development. Comparing children with similar background characteristics and parental mate-selection patterns who differ only in terms of whether their parents marry after childbirth, we find that marriage after childbirth significantly increases a child’s early cognitive performance but there is no evidence that it affects child asthma risk or child behavioral outcomes.

Keywords: Marriage after Childbearing; Child Outcomes; Propensity Score Matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C3 J12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2007-12
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Forthcoming in "Casual Analysis in Population Studies: Concepts, Methods, Applications", European Studies of Population

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https://www.herbert.miami.edu/_assets/files/repec/wp-0720.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: SHOULD WE GET MARRIED? THE EFFECT OF PARENTS' MARRIAGE ON OUT‐OF‐WEDLOCK CHILDREN (2012)
Working Paper: Should We Get Married? The Effect of Parents' Marriage on Out-of-Wedlock Children (2008)
Working Paper: Should We Get Married? The Effect of Parents’ Marriage on Out-of-Wedlock Children (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mia:wpaper:0720

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