AN ANALYSIS OF OUT-OF-WEDLOCK CHILDBEARING IN THE UNITED-STATES

This paper relates the erosion of the custom of shotgun marriage to th e legalization of abortion and the increased availability of contracep tion to unmarried women in the United States. The decline in shotgun m arriage accounts for a significant fraction of the increase in out-of- wedlock first births. Several models illustrate the analogy between wo men who do not adopt either birth control or abortion and the hand-loo m weavers, both victims of changing technology. Mechanisms causing fem ale immiseration are modeled and historically described. This technolo gy-shock hypothesis is an alternative to welfare and job-shortage theo ries of the feminization of poverty.