Non-marital Fertility in Metropolises in Ukraine

In Ukraine, the increasing share of children born out of marriage during the fi rst two decades of our country independence was in line with European trends and became consequence of the intensifi cation of the modernization process of many spheres of public life. In Ukraine, every fi ft h child is born out of wedlock, and this indicator is one of the lowest among European countries. Th ere are signifi cant diff erences in the prevalence of illegitimate births within the country between regions and settlements of diff erent types. Th e purpose of our study is comprehensive analysis of the peculiarities of childbearing out of marriage in the metropolises of Ukraine, its dynamics and structural characteristics. An in-depth analysis of illemethods are comparison, graphical presentation of analysis results, generalization methods, analogies. Lviv is a city with pronounced traditional matrimonial behavior and more strong preferences for classical family values and has the lowest share of children born out of marriage. Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Odesa are characterized by the relatively high level of out-ofwedlock births that can most likely be explained by more intensive demographic modernization and transformation. Th e decrease in the proportion of illegitimate births among all births is the general trend in the cities of Ukraine. In metropolises of our country the share of children born out of marriage is much lower than in the oblast of their location and other urban areas; except for Lviv, where the difference between the indicators is minimal. Compared to other settlements, the metropolises are characterized by smaller share of the youngest women among mothers who were not married at the childbearing moment and higher share of women 35 years and older. Metropolises have the same age profi le of the proportion of illegitimate births as other territories: the illegitimate births are the most common among women under 20 years of age, women of 25-29 years have the lowest share; among the women 30 years and older the share of births out of marriage gradually increases, but remains much lower than that for youngest mothers. Th e mean age of mother at the birth of child out of marriage is usually lower than similar indicator that takes into account all births. Th e mean age of mother at the birth of child out of marriage in the metropolises signifi cantly exceeds the corresponding indicators in the area of their location and in Ukraine as a whole. Structural diff erences in out-of-wedlock births refl ect changes in its factors in favor of “desired” motherhood.

Analysis of Non-Marital Fertility in Nigeria and Implications for Intervention and Future Research

Fertility and marriage are inextricably linked in sub-Saharan Africa, but recent changes, such as the rise in non-marital fertility, signals a weakening link, and the second demographic transition offers some explanations. Non-marital fertility comes with disadvantages, but it has not been adequately studied in Nigeria. Hence, this study examined the levels, patterns, and correlates of non-marital fertility, and offers implications for interventions and future research. Using data from the Nigeria Demographic and Survey 2008–2018, with a pooled weighted sample size of 11,925 unmarried women, percentage distribution was employed and a two-part model for count data was fitted, with the result showing that the level of non-marital fertility is 29%, and it is common among younger, rural dwelling, and uneducated unmarried women. The correlates of non-marital fertility include age, region of residence, level of education, religion, household wealth index, relationship status, ethnicity, work status, and age at sexual debut. Interventions to arrest rise of non-martial fertility due to its obvious disadvantages, should strengthen sexual and reproductive health programs for unmarried rural-dwelling young women, and revitalize welfare efforts for children born outside wedlock, for poor women, while future research should explore an in-depth understanding of non-marital births.

The Normativity of Marriage and the Marriage Premium for Children’s Outcomes

Children born to married parents have better health, behavioral, educational, and economic outcomes than children of unmarried mothers. This association, known as the "marriage premium," has been interpreted as emerging from the selectivity of parents who marry and from a positive effect of marriage. The authors suggest that the positive effect of marriage could be contextual, emerging from the normativity of marriage in society. They test this hypothesis using the case of Chile, where marital fertility dropped sharply from 66% of all births in 1990 to 27% in 2016. The authors find that the benefit of marriage for infant health was large in the early 1990s but declined as marital fertility became less normative in society, to fully disappear in 2016. Multivariate analysis of temporal variation, multilevel models of variation across place, sibling ?fixed effects models, and a falsification test consistently indicate that marriage has a beneficial effect when marital fertility is normative and a weak effect when is not. Generalizing from this case, the authors discuss contextual effects of diverse practices and statuses.

SES differences in marital fertility widened during the fertility transition—evidence from global micro-level population data

The decline in human fertility during the demographic transition is one of the most profound changes to human living conditions. To gain a better understanding of this transition we investigate the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and marital fertility in different fertility regimes in a global and historical perspective. We use data for a large number women in 91 different countries for the period 1703–2018 (N = 116,612,473). In the pre-transitional fertility regime the highest SES group had somewhat lower marital fertility than other groups both in terms of children ever born (CEB) and number of surviving children under 5 (CWR). Over the course of the fertility transition, as measured by the different fertility regimes, these rather small initial SES differentials in marital fertility widened, both for CEB and CWR. There was no indication of a convergence in marital fertility by SES in the later stages of the transition. Our results imply a universally negative association between SES and marital fertility and that the fertility differentials widened during the fertility transition.