Paternal Relationship History and Male Fertility: Evidence from the NLSY

Thomas Gryn, Ohio State University
Frank Mott, Ohio State University

This paper uses unique longitudinal data for a national sample of over 4,000 men and their children in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth who were repeatedly interviewed between 1979 and 1998 to examine cumulative and parity-specific fertility trajectories, and their linkages with the patterning of relationships over time. A particular focus will be on exploring the extent that black, white, and possibly non-black Hispanic, respondents differ in these linkages. In addition to describing trajectories for these men as they age from middle/late adolescence to their late thirties, we use event history methodology to explore the determinants of progression to a first birth, and from a first to second birth sorting out the extent to which marriage, cohabitation histories, as well as the number of different reported partners in these relationships impact on parity progression independent of a number of socio-economic and demographic antecedents, and how this varies by race/ethnicity.