Non-Marital Fertility, Child Health, and Marriage: Do Adverse Birth Outcomes Alter a Woman's Probability of Marriage?

Andrzej Kulczycki, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Shailender Swaminathan, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Alexander Greg, University of South Florida

The past few decades have witnessed increases in the rates of low birth weight deliveries and non-marital fertility in the United States. This study examines the influence of poor birth outcomes on the marital prospects of unwed mothers, about which little is known. We use the 1988 National Maternal and Infant Health Survey. This dataset oversamples very low-birthweight (VLBW) babies, validates mothers’ reports of child health with objective medical data, and permits use of additional early child health measures. We focus on primaparous unwed women who were followed up between 8-18 months post-delivery. Our recent work indicates that VLBW babies have a significant impact on marital dissolution. We extend this here by jointly modeling a discrete time hazard model for marriage and a probit model for VLBW to estimate the causal effects of VLBW on the probability of marriage, using as instruments mother’s birthweight and community level health infrastructure.