What about Having the Children Rosalind B. King

1. OPTIONALLOGO HERE What about (Having) the Children? Rosalind B. King, National Institute of Child and Health Development Jenifer L. Bratter, Rice University, Department of Sociology OPTIONALLOGO HERE Significance Central Questions Race-Specific Fertility Same-Race vs. Interracial Fertility Preliminary Multivariate Analysis Hazard of Having a Child in the First Year How does tracking interracial fertility behavior challenge what we know about racial differences group-level fertility?. Do patterns of interracial fertility follow the racial group patterns of the female partner or with the male partner? Which race plays a “dominant” role in shaping the fertility behavior of the couple? Interracial couples are an increasing family form. Growing numbers of Couples are crossing racial lines and a growing number of children are reared in these households . White-White vs. White Husband – Non-White Wife & Non-White Husband & White Wife Figure 1. Odds of Having A child in first year of Intermarriage by race of spouse (Reference White – White Couples) Data & Sample Black- Black vs. Black Husband – Non-Black Wife & Non-Black Husband & Black Wife The data used in these analyses come from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), a nationally representative sample of 4,928 men ages 15 to 44 (National Center for Health Statistics 2004). For this preliminary analysis, we draw a sample of males who report having current wives or partners and who provide valid information on their wives race and Hispanic ethnicity (n=1,672) and focus specifically on those reporting marriages (n=1,045). Source: Lee & Edmonston 2005. “New Marriage, New Families: U.S. Racial and Hispanic Intermarriage” Population Bulletin 60(2):1-40 Figure 2. Odds of Having A child in First year of Marriage by race of spouse (Reference Black - Black Couples) Significance While research has documented the likelihood of entering, its still unclear how often or how likely such couples are to bear children/ Race-Specific Trends in Fertility provide some hints: Some racial trends in fertility are moving in the same direction (e.g., White and African American); some are moving differently (e.g., Non-Hispanic White and Hispanic Previous research shows that within-couple differences (gender and race) matter for generating differences between couples (race-specific differences) Methods We show birth rates within current marriages and model the likelihood of reporting a birth within the first marriage We employ event history analysis predicting the hazard of a birth within the first year of marriage, using complementary log-log model for continuous time processes using PROC GENMOD in SAS (Allison 1995). We adjusted for the effects of the complex sampling design using weighted generalized estimation equations (GEE) Note: Models Adjust for Age at Marriage, Birth Cohort, & Education of Respondent. *p<.001 Findings Forthcoming Analyses • Integrate the role of cohabitation as context for fertility behavior • Include more groups • Add controls for other indicators of achieved and ascribed traits that impact both whether or not a child is born and whether or not a couple is intermarried