The limitations of understanding multi-partner fertility in Australia

People and Place

Volumn 16, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 1-8

  Gray, Edith ^a   Evans, Ann ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION; FERTILITY; POPULATION SIZE;

AUSTRALASIA; AUSTRALIA;

EID: 59049095266     PISSN: 10394788     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Births, Australia 2006, Catalogue no. 3301.0, ABS, Canberra, 2007
2. For example, R.B. Mincy, 'Who should marry whom?: multiple partner fertility among new parents', Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing Working Paper 2002-03-FF 2002 accessed 25 July 2008
3. M. J. Carlson and F. F. Furstenberg, 'The prevalence and correlates of multipartnered fertility among urban U.S. parents', Journal of Marriage and Family, vol. 68, no. 3, 2006, pp. 718-732
4. D. R. Meyer, M. Cancian and S. T. Cook, 'Multiple-partner fertility: Incidence and implications for child support policy', Social Science Review, vol. 79, no. 4, 2005, pp. 577-601
5. See K. B. Guzzo and F. F. Furstenberg, 'Multipartnered fertility among American men', Demography, vol. 44, no. 3, 2007, pp. 583-601 for research based on a representative sample.
6. Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (MIAESR), HILDA Survey Annual Report 2006, 2007, University of Melbourne, Melbourne
7. M. J. Carlson and F. F. Fustenberg, The consequences of multi-partner fertility for parental involvement and relationships, 2007, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing Working Paper 2006-28-FF accessed 23 July 2008
8. J. Forster-Jones, 'Family diversification inAustralia - the increasing share of blended and step families', People and Place, vol. 15, no. 4, 2007, pp. 9-19
9. Mincy, 2002, op. cit.
10. The Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey also includes information on a comparison group of 1,186 children born to married parents. Carlson and Furstenberg, 2006, op. cit., found that when unmarried and married parents are compared the prevalence of multipartnered fertility declines to around one quarter of women.
11. Meyer, et al., 2005, op. cit.
12. Guzzo and Furstenberg, 2007, op. cit.
13. ibid.
14. ibid.
15. W. D. Manning and P. J. Smock, '"Swapping" families: Serial parenting and economic support for children', Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 62, no. 1, 2000, pp. 111-122
16. Carbon and Furstenberg, 2006, op. cit.
17. P. Fomby, and A. Cherlin, 'Family instability and child well-being', American Sociological Review, vol. 72, no. 2, 2007, pp. 181-204
18. O. Cynthia and S. McLanahan, 'Partnership instability and child well-being', Journal of Marriage and Family, vol. 69, no. 4, 2007, pp. 1065-1083.
19. Guzzo and Furstenberg, 2007, op. cit.
20. S. D. Stewart, W.D. Manning and P.J. Smock, 'Union formation among men in the U.S.: does having prior children matter?', Journal of Marriage and Family, vol. 65, no. 1, 2003, pp. 90-104
21. D.M Upchurch, L.A. Lillard and C.W.A Panis, 'The impact of nonmarital childbearing on subsequent marital formation and dissolution', in L. L. Wu and B. Wolfe (Eds), Out of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2001, pp. 344-380
22. P. Corr and R. Kippen, 'The case for parity and birth-order statistics', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics, 2006, vol. 48, no.2, pp. 171-200
23. Forster-Jones, 2007, op cit.
24. However for the older respondents in particular, even if information had been gathered for all cohabitations, estimation of the start and end dates of past cohabitations may have been seriously affected by recall error. See S.R Hayford and S.P Morgan, 'The quality of retrospective data on cohabitation', Demography, 2008, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 129-149.
25. J. Manlove, C. Logan, E. Ikramullah and E. Holcombe, 'Factors associated with multiple-partner fertility among fathers', Journal of Marriage and Family, 2008, vol. 70, no. 2, pp. 536-548
26. It is also possible that multi-partnered fertility was over-estimated due to the way in which pre-marital cohabitation information was collected. Rather than asking for the specific year that the cohabitation preceding a marriage began, respondents were asked about how long they had lived together before marriage in terms of the number of years or months. The start date of the pro-marital cohabitation was then calculated as the start date of the marriage minus the number of years or months of cohabitation. If respondents gave a rough estimation of the length of cohabitation it is possible that the calculated date may not have been truly accurate and children born around the time of the pre-marital cohabitation may have been classified as not having been born to that marriage.
27. Manlove, et al., 2008, op. cit.
28. We note that recall error may be an issue for the oldest cohorts, although major events, like marriages and births, are more easily remembered than other life events. See L.L. Bumpass and R.K. Raley, 'Measuring divorce and separation', in S.L Hofferth and L.M Casper (Eds), Handbook of Measurement Issues in Family Research, Lawrence Erlbaum Associated, New Jersey, 2007, pp. 125-144.