Full Citation

Title: Racial Differences in Re-marital Fertility in 1910

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2004

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: We develop a new approach for studying remarital fertility differentials with individual-level, cross-sectional data and use it to investigate hypotheses related to historical racial differences in remarital fertility. Data come from the 1910 IPUMS. The methodology provides a means to evaluate differentials in remarital fertility net of the influences of missing children due to mortality and fostering/aging out/home leaving, as well as other contextual influences. In substantive findings, consistent with traditional interpretations of historical African American fertility patterns which emphasize involuntary influences on fecundity and fertility (e.g., venereal disease, poor health, complications from childbirth), we find that African Americans are less likely than European Americans to have had a remarital birth. However, conditional on having at least one remarital birth (i.e., among those with proven fecundity), there is no significant difference between European and African Americans with respect to the number of remarital births they had. Supplemental analyses indicate that these results are robust.

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Elman, Cheryl; London, Andrew

Conference Name: Population Association of America

Publisher Location: Boston, MA

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Family and Marriage

Countries: