Timing the First Birth: Does It Matter?

Abstract

The belief that the timing of a first birth has an enduring effect on a womans chances for a favorable marital family and economic status and the number of children she will have was tested with data on 10906 white and 6044 nonwhite mothers from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. The risk of female family headship or living below the poverty line some 20 years after first birth seemed little different among ever-married mothers who had or had not borne an illegitimate child or who had or had not been pregnant before marriage. Mothers of first births conceived before marriage had more children than mothers whose first birth was conceived after marriage. However the difference between these two types of mothers is so small that the effect on the total number of children born is trivial. The status of never-married mothers is similar to ever-married mothers in disrupted marital statuses. Differences in family marital or economic status between older white and nonwhite mothers are not a consequence of differences in the timing of first births in the two populations. (authors)