Having a child within a cohabiting union in Europe and North America: What is the role of parents' socio-economic status?

The link between parental socio-economic status (SES) and the likelihood of having a birth in cohabitation or in marriage varies considerably across countries. Previous studies have referred to the pattern of disadvantage perspective and the second demographic transition theory to explain this cross-national variation. Yet no study has directly tested the explanatory power of both theories in this context. In the current study, hypotheses are formulated about the influence of economic inequality and norms regarding family formation on this relationship. The hypotheses are tested in 19 European and North American countries, using data of the Generations and Gender Survey and four other datasets. The analyses show that in societies that have more traditional family formation norms, women with lower parental SES are more likely to have a birth in cohabitation whereas such differences are not found in less traditional societies. The influence of economic inequality is less clear-cut.