Full Citation
Title: Marriage Timing, Motherhood Timing, and Women's Wellbeing in Retirement
Citation Type: Book, Section
Publication Year: 2013
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Abstract: This chapter explores the lifecycle effects of changes in the timing of initial family formation for US women. It first documents the key trends of increasing marriage and motherhood delays since the baby boom and then investigates the links between the timing of a womans initial family formation and her well being later in life. The chapter presents new evidence of a lasting association between delayed initial family formation and higher earnings over decades, as well as greater asset accumulation well into retirement age. The separate impacts of motherhood and marriage delays on income (own and spousal) and wealth (assets, debt, and net wealth) are explored in a multivariate regression framework using data on women born between 1922 and 1954. Delays in marriage and motherhood are each associated with improved economic status, but the effects for motherhood delay are substantially larger. The median change in maternal age at first birth between 1960 and 2006 was about five years. The estimates imply that this five-year delay in motherhood was associated with increased wealth of $62,000 (in 2010 dollars) for women in their fifties, $41,000 for women in their sixties, and $59,000 for women in their seventies. These values represent increases of 15 percent to 27 percent relative to the average wealth of women in those age groups. The results indicate that small shocks to demographic outcomes early in lifesuch as shifting fertility a few years earlier or latercan have substantial and lasting economic effects.
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Authors: Miller, Amalia R.
Editors: K. Couch, M. Daly J.Zissimopoulos
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Volume Title: Lifecycle Events and Their Consequences: Job Loss, Family Change, and Declines in Health
Publisher: Stanford Economics and Finance
Publisher Location: Redwood City, CA
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Aging and Retirement, Family and Marriage, Fertility and Mortality, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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