Hayford Sarah R
School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 873701, Tempe, AZ 85287-3701, USA.
Soc Biol. 2005 Spring-Summer;52(1-2):1-17. doi: 10.1080/19485565.2002.9989096.
Population-level birth rates in the United States were largely stable between 1970 and 1999. This stability contrasts with rapid change in marriage rates and fertility timing during the same period. In this article, I use decomposition techniques to analyze this seeming paradox. I decompose the general fertility rate into four components: age distribution, marital status, age-specific nonmarital fertility, and age-specific marital fertility. Absent other changes, declining time spent married would have led to substantial decline in fertility. Several factors combined to counterbalance these changes in marital behavior. Among white women in the 1970s and 1980s, marital fertility rates increased at older ages, consistent with a scenario in which women postponed both marriage and childbearing; increased nonmarital birth rates during this period were not a driving factor in overall fertility trends. Increased nonmarital fertility was more important in compensating for declining time spent married among African American women and among white women in the 1990s.
1970年至1999年间，美国的总体出生率基本保持稳定。这种稳定性与同期结婚率和生育时间的快速变化形成了对比。在本文中，我使用分解技术来分析这一看似矛盾的现象。我将一般生育率分解为四个组成部分：年龄分布、婚姻状况、特定年龄的非婚生育率和特定年龄的婚内生育率。如果没有其他变化，结婚时间的减少会导致生育率大幅下降。有几个因素共同作用，抵消了婚姻行为的这些变化。在20世纪70年代和80年代的白人女性中，婚内生育率在较高年龄有所上升，这与女性推迟结婚和生育的情况一致；在此期间非婚生育率的上升并不是总体生育趋势的驱动因素。在20世纪90年代，非婚生育率的上升在补偿非裔美国女性和白人女性结婚时间减少方面更为重要。
