Family Instability, Stress Heighten Adolescents' Risk of Premarital Birth

Abstract

Data from the National Survey of Family Households (NSFH) based on a national probability sample of US residents aged 19 and older in 1987 and 1988 included individuals parental fertility marital and home-leaving histories. Data for the 4776 White Black and Hispanic female respondents born after 1937 were analyzed in order to test 3 hypotheses: 1) the childhood socialization hypothesis posits that women who grow up in a family with no father are socialized in ways that increase their risk of premarital child bearing; 2) the social control hypothesis holds that adolescent supervision is more difficult in a one-parent family than in a two-parent family; and 3) the instability hypothesis contends that premarital childbearing is a response to stresses from changes in family structure. In each racial group static measures indicated that being in a nonintact family at age 14 significantly raised the risk of a premarital first birth (by 65% for Whites by 32% for Blacks and 97% for Hispanics). Being in different kinds of families at age 14 however had varying effects: for White women the effects of being in a mother-only family or a step-family situation were similar (a 56-75% increase in the risk of a premarital first birth) and statistically significant. In contrast among Blacks and Hispanics living in a mother-only family had a positive and significant effect (a 38% increased risk for Blacks and one of 132% for Hispanics) while living in a step-family had no significant effect and living in another type of family had a significant positive effect only for Blacks (30%). Women who grow up in a nonintact family may have a premarital first birth as a response to the stresses of family instability rather than because of socialization. Family instability has statistically significant effects on the risk of premarital first births among White and Hispanic women and smaller but significant effects among Blacks.