Resumen de The diversity of union and fertility trajectories in the UK
This thesis explores the increasing complexity in the life course in the United Kingdom. The first article illustrates the association between parents’ socio-economic position and children’s transition to first union and parenthood. The analytical sample (N=35,880) is drawn from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society) with respondents being born between 1930 and 1980, to examine not only the effect of children’s background on union formation and parenthood but also whether this effect changes over birth cohorts, periods, and the life course, and varies by gender. The results lend support to the hypothesis of a negative relation between socio-economic family background and timing of first union – whether in a marriage or in a cohabitation – and a first non-marital birth.
In the second article, I study the risk of a birth and the risk of separation in different union settings, such as step-families and families with no prior children. I test countervailing hypotheses on childbearing transition. I also test the association between (biological and step) children influence the risk of union dissolution. Using multilevel multiprocess models with simultaneous equations, I model partnership transitions jointly with fertility. The analysis is based on the partnership and birth histories of the Wave 1 of UKHLS (Understanding Society) of men and women aged 16-45. The findings indicate that both the parenthood and the commitment motives influence the transitions to a birth, under different family configurations. Further, the risk of separation is reduced by the presence of shared children, while the existence of children from prior unions does not generally increase the risk of dissolution.
The third article assesses whether parenthood influences repartnering for women and men and explores how repartnering is associated with parental status of the prospective partners. The results, based on the Wave 1 of UKHLS, suggest that mothers, and to a lesser extent fathers, are less likely to repartner than their childless counterparts. Among parents who have child custody, there emerges a distinct gender gap because mothers exhibit a significantly lower rate of repartnering than fathers. Finally, coresident single parents are relatively less likely to repartner with child- less individuals, and single fathers more frequently form two-parent stepfamilies than do mothers.
