Low-Income Mothers as “Othermothers” to Their Romantic Partners' Children: Women's Coparenting in Multiple Partner Fertility Relationships

When a parent has another child with a new partner, a significant effect on parents and children is likely, making factors associated with multiple-partner fertility of interest to policy makers. For single mothers, one potential policy-relevant factor influencing their subsequent fertility with a new partner is child support income. However, the direction and magnitude of any effect is not well-established. This study documents the simple negative relationship between child support and nonmarital fertility with a new partner in our sample of low-income unmarried mothers. We then take advantage of a policy experiment that resulted in randomly assigned differences in child support income to investigate its effects. We find no support for a negative causal relationship between child support receipt and nonmarital fertility with a new partner, instead finding suggestive evidence that mothers with more child support income are slightly more likely to have a subsequent nonmarital birth with a new partner.

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Seeking Romance in the Crosshairs of Multiple-Partner Fertility

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ◽

10.1177/0002716214530831 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 654 (1) ◽

pp. 185-212 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Linda M. Burton

Keyword(s):

Social Interactions ◽

Low Income ◽

Future Research ◽

Multiple Partner ◽

Erotic Love ◽

Rural And Urban ◽

Biological Children ◽

Ethnographic Data ◽

Complex Forms ◽

Multiple Partner Fertility

Using longitudinal ethnographic data on low-income rural and urban mostly single mothers, I explore the romance-seeking behaviors of women whose intimate relationships are characterized by multiple-partner fertility (MPF). MPF involves mothers and/or their love interests having biological children with other partners, frequently in nonmarital, transient unions. Romance comprises mothers’ feelings and social interactions related to being chosen, erotic love, and adulation of the other. Findings indicate most mothers selectively engaged in one of four types of romance-seeking behaviors: casual, illusionist, pragmatic, or strategic. Mothers’ romantic actions are associated with their desires to have loving experiences outside the challenges of daily life in poverty and its corollary uncertainty. Moreover, mothers involved in the most complex forms of MPF openly compete with other women for “first wife” status in a stratified partnering system called rostering—a term coined by respondents in the ethnographies reported here. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.

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Lifetime Parenthood in the Context of Single- and Multiple-Partner Fertility

10.31219/osf.io/aw96q ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Linus Andersson

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Socioeconomic Position ◽

Birth Spacing ◽

High Income ◽

Social Origins ◽

Multiple Partner ◽

Dependent Children ◽

Proximate Cause ◽

Life Courses ◽

Multiple Partner Fertility

The proportion of life spent caring for dependent children is a defining feature of life courses. This study analyzes the period of life spent as parents to children no older than 18 as a salient difference between single- and multiple-partner fertility trajectories. Individuals who have children with more than one partner spend a much longer time as parents to dependent children than those who have children with one partner, on average 8.2 more years among men and 6.2 more years among women. Cross-partner birth spacing is a more powerful proximate cause of this gap than completed fertility. The association is not confounded by social origins. Among those who have children with more than one partner, the number of years spent as parents varies slightly by socioeconomic position: high income earners on average spend one more year as parents than low income earners.

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