Midpregnancy Marriage and Divorce: Why the Death of Shotgun Marriage Has Been Greatly Exaggerated.

Conventional wisdom holds that births following the colloquially termed "shotgun marriage"-that is, births to parents who married between conception and the birth-are nearing obsolescence. To investigate trends in shotgun marriage, we matched North Carolina administrative data on nearly 800,000 firs...

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Published in:Demography (Springer Nature) Vol. 53; no. 6; pp. 1693 - 1716
Main Authors: Gibson-Davis, Christina, Ananat, Elizabeth, Gassman-Pines, Anna, Gibson-Davis, Christina M, Ananat, Elizabeth O
Format: journal article
Published: Springer Nature Dec2016
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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          Gibson-Davis, Christina
          Ananat, Elizabeth
          Gassman-Pines, Anna
          Gibson-Davis, Christina M
          Ananat, Elizabeth O
        affil:
          Sanford School of Public Policy , Duke University , Durham 27708 USA
          Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, PO Box 90245, Durham, NC, 27708, USA
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        North Carolina
        Marriage
        Divorce
        Birth rate
        Pregnancy
        Black people
        Families
        White people
        Socioeconomic factors
        Conception
        At-risk people
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        subj:
          Marriage
          Divorce
          Birth rate
          Pregnancy
          Black people
          Families
          White people
          Socioeconomic factors
          North Carolina
          Conception
          At-risk people
      keyword:
        Birth rates
        Midpregnancy
        Preconception marriages
        Shotgun marriages
        Birth rates
        Midpregnancy
        Preconception marriages
        Shotgun marriages
      ab: Conventional wisdom holds that births following the colloquially termed "shotgun marriage"-that is, births to parents who married between conception and the birth-are nearing obsolescence. To investigate trends in shotgun marriage, we matched North Carolina administrative data on nearly 800,000 first births among white and black mothers to marriage and divorce records. We found that among married births, midpregnancy-married births (our preferred term for shotgun-married births) have been relatively stable at about 10 % over the past quarter-century while increasing substantially for vulnerable population subgroups. In 2012, among black and white less-educated and younger women, midpregnancy-married births accounted for approximately 20 % to 25 % of married first births. The increasing representation of midpregnancy-married births among married births raises concerns about well-being among at-risk families because midpregnancy marriages may be quite fragile. Our analysis revealed, however, that midpregnancy marriages were more likely to dissolve only among more advantaged groups. Of those groups considered to be most at risk of divorce-namely, black women with lower levels of education and who were younger-midpregnancy marriages had the same or lower likelihood of divorce as preconception marriages. Our results suggest an overlooked resiliency in a type of marriage that has only increased in salience.
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