Who Should Marry and Whom: Multiple Partner Fertility among Fragile Families

Ronald Mincy, Columbia University
Chien-Chung Huang, Rutgers University

Proponents of using welfare policy to promote family formation have been encouraged by reports that more than half of the young unwed mothers who responded to the Fragile and Child Well-being survey report that they intend to marry their children's fathers. However, about 60 percent have more than one child and parents with multiple children sometimes have children with more than one partner. Multiple partner fertility poses two important challenges to current discussions of family formation policy. First, multiple partner fertility may discourage marriage because the parents of children born outside the present union may want to visit their child. Also, when fathers have children outside the current union, they may have existing child support obligations. This paper explores the extent of multiple partner fertility among fragile families, including race, ethnicity, and residential/relationship status. We draw inferences from these findings for family formation policies.