This collaborative study aims to investigate the dynamics of two interrelated aspects of the life course -- marriage and childbearing -- by examining entry into marriage, entry into parenthood, and subsequent childbearing. It will focus especially on how these transitions vary with time (e.g., age, marital duration, ages of children, historical time) and seeks answers to three broad questions: (1) What earlier and current experiences influence an individual's marital and fertility behavior? (2) Do earlier experiences have enduring direct effects, or do individuals react primarily to their present situation? More generally, in what ways do effects of previous experiences vary over the life course? How do answers to these questions vary over the recent historical past? The project will utilize local hazard models. These models entail two significant innovations: they let one estimate time variation in the hazard rate without making implausible assumptions about its parametric form, and they let one test hypotheses about time dependence in the effects of covariates. The proposed research bears on a number of important policy issues. For example, social policies are increasingly directed towards family concerns such as the growing prevalence of children born out of wedlock and the increasing numbers of female-headed households. Although recent studies by social scientists have documented the detrimental consequences of growing up in a single-parent family structure relatively little is known about the long- term effects. Yet differences in the nature of these long- term effects may suggest markedly different policy actions. Thus family policies appropriate if the effect of single- parenthood is large and relatively constant as individuals grow older may differ substantially from policies appropriate if the effect declines as individuals grow older. Still other policies may be appropriate if effects vary according to the ages and durations in which a child is exposed to a single-parent family structure. The study will analyze these and related forms of age variation using innovative methodologies, which will clarify the age-varying effects of individual-level attributes and social circumstances on an individual's marital and fertility behaviors.
