 Trajectories of Couple Relationship Quality after Childbirth: Does Marriage Matter?Marcia Carlson and
Alicia VanOrman
No 1481, Working Papers from Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. Abstract: Marital quality typically declines after the birth of a (first) child, as parenthood brings new identities and responsibilities for mothers and fathers. Yet, it is less clear whether nonmarital, cohabiting relationship quality follows a similar trajectory. This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=2,108) with latent growth curve models to examine relationship quality for co-resident couples over nine years after a child's birth. Findings suggest that marriage at birth is protective for couple relationship quality, net of various individual characteristics associated with marriage, compared to all cohabiting couples at birth; however, marriage does not differentiate relationship quality compared to the subset of stably-cohabiting couples. Also, cohabiting couples who get married after the birth have better relationship quality compared to all cohabitors who do not marry though again, not compared to stably-cohabiting couples. Keywords: Marriage; children; parenthood; cohabiting; quality (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:crcwel:wp13-14-ff.pdf Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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