The increase in non-marital childbearing and its link to educational expansion

Abstract

<p>The rise in non-marital childbearing has coincided with educational expansion, although</p><p> non- marital childbirths are more common among the low-educated population. This</p><p> article examines how changes in the education-specific rates of non-marital</p><p> childbearing and in the educational distribution of parents contributed to increased nonmarital</p><p> childbearing among Finnish first-time parents over the 1970–2009 period. Using</p><p> register data and a decomposition approach, we find that the increase in non-marital</p><p> first-time births was driven mainly by the large population of secondary-educated</p><p> women and men and by the growing group of lower tertiary-educated women. The</p><p> lowest-educated population continued to have the highest proportion of non-marital</p><p> first-time childbearing, but their overall contribution was small due to diminishing</p><p> group size. The highest-educated population increased its contribution to non-marital</p><p> childbearing but still has the lowest non-marital childbearing rates. We conclude that</p><p> the medium-educated population makes important contributions to family changes and</p><p> merits increased scholarly attention.</p><p><br /></p>