NONMARITAL PREGNANCIES AND MARRIAGE IN THE UNITED-STATES

One important change in postwar American family-formation patterns has been a sharp decline in the probability that single women pregnant wi th their first child marry during their pregnancies and thus legitimat e the birth. In this article we first discuss the social context surro unding this change. Our empirical analysis of four national cross-sect ional fertility surveys covering the early 1950s through the late 1980 s then documents the decreasing likelihood of legitimation for women f rom most racial, social, and family backgrounds. Finally, we use longi tudinal data for recent cohorts of young women to investigate the atti tudinal, familial, and scholastic factors that shape their decisions a bout legitimating a nonmarital pregnancy.