The Timing and Partnership Context of Becoming a Parent: Childhood Antecedents, Cohort and Gender

1. The Timing and Partnership Context of Becoming a Parent: Childhood Antecedents, Cohort and Gender John Hobcraft University of York

2. Main Questions • Links of Childhood Disadvantage to becoming a parent? • How do Childhood Disadvantages play through Timing and Partnership Context? • Role in ‘off-time’ and ‘off-context’ first births • Do these links vary by Cohort and by Gender?

3. Data sources The British Birth Cohort Studies The National Child Development Study (NCDS) • longitudinal study of children born in one week of March 1958: follow-ups at ages 7, 11, 16, 23, 33, and 42 British Cohort Study (BCS70) • longitudinal study of children born in one week of April 1970: follow-ups at age 5, 10, 16, 26, and 30 • N=22,324

4. First Births by Age 30

5. Cohort changes in exposure and birth context

6. Crude & standardized rates of first birth (per thousand)

7. Changing childhood contexts • Increasing parental divorce/ separation • Move to earlier childbearing among CM parents • Increased gender equity • Residualisation of social (public) housing

8. Changing contexts of transition to adulthood for 1970 cf 1958 • Increased importance of education • Better average income • But greater income inequality • Rising unemployment to age 30 for 1958 cohort • Less favourable housing market • Shifts in normative partnership contexts for births • Delayed transitions to adulthood • Greater gender equity • Narrowed education differences by gender • Increased female employment • Lower security – employment, welfare state, partnership

9. Childhood Antecedents • Socioeconomic status (4 waves) • Class of origin, Father’s class, & Child poverty • Housing tenure (3 waves) • Parental ages at cohort member’s birth • Family disruption (4 waves) • born out of wedlock, ever in care, parental separation, & widow(er)hood • Parental Interest in Schooling (age 10 or 11) • Anti-Social Behaviour (3,2, & 1 waves) • Aggression, truancy, & contact with police • Academic test scores (3 waves)

10. Age-Groups 16-19 20-22 23-24 25-29 Partnership Contexts Never partnered Out of partnership Cohabiting Married ex-cohabiting Direct marriage Timing and Contexts

11. Analytic strategy 1 • Episode files & Poisson rate models • Basic timing model • Timing model with childhood antecedents • Basic timing and partnership context model • Timing and partnership with childhood antecedents

12. Analytic strategy 2 • Interact timing and context measures with gender & cohort and with each other • Interact childhood antecedents with timing and with context • Further interact all of these with gender and with cohort • Total of 301 dummies for timing model • And 617 dummies for timing and context model

13. Analytic strategy 3 • Repeated ‘blocked’ stepwise regressions • Get preliminary model • Test for addition of all possible terms • Modify model to include residual extra significant terms • Repeat until stable • P<0.001

14. Results – Summary (IRRs)Timing & Context Model • Six ‘pervasive’ childhood disadvantages – all ages to 30, all partnership contexts • IRRs 1.11 to 1.19 • Six ‘age-threshold’ childhood disadvantages • IRRs 1.13 to 2.47 • Eight ‘less favourable’ partnership context terms • IRRs 1.17 to 1.81, (4>=1.40) • Parsimony – 20 child antecedent & 12 T&C terms (of 617 dummies!)

15. ‘Pervasive’ childhood disadvantages – all ages to 30, all contexts, both genders and cohorts • Social housing (1.16), • Any young parent (1.18), • low parental interest (1.29), • fairly ASB (1.11), • <2 high Q tests (1.15) • 2/3 Low Q tests (1.11)

16. ‘Age-threshold’ childhood disadvantages • Mainly ‘long reach’ to age 25; half are gendered • 16-24: • clear SES (1.13), • strong SES (1.20) • 16-24 Females: • any ASB (1.13), • <2 High quartile tests (1.33) • 16-22: • any Low Q test (1.17) • 16-19 Females • Very ASB (2.47)

17. ‘Less favourable’ partnership context terms • Main contrasts by married vs not married • Not married: • any SES (1.21), • no very interested (1.19), • any ASB (1.17), • <2 High Q test (1.51) • any Low Q test (1.36) • Not in partnership: • any family disruption (1.49), • Not in partnership Females: • Strong SES (1.43) • Never partnered 1970 Cohort: • Social housing (1.81)

18. Gender & Cohort terms • GENDER – all excess female legacies of disadvantage; predominantly timing • 16-24, Females: • any ASB (1.13), • <2 High quartile tests (1.33) • 16-19, Females: • Very ASB (2.47) • Not in partnership, Females: • Strong SES (1.43) • COHORT • Never partnered 1970 Cohort: • Social housing (1.81)

19. IRRs for CM Parent’s ages

20. Net IRRs - Tenure

21. Net IRRs – Family Disruption

22. Net IRRs – Parental Interest

23. Net IRRs for SES

24. Net IRRs for ASB

25. Net IRRs - Test Scores

26. Summary 1 • CONSISTENCY of ‘legacies’ of childhood disadvantage • Childhood antecedents ‘play’ through partnership context slightly more often and more strongly than through age • Childhood antecedents generally have ‘long age reach’ covering 16-24 or 16-29 • Childhood disadvantage especially associated with excess first birth rates outside of marriage and only slightly more out of co-residential partnership

27. Gender • Most child disadvantages apply equally to men & women’s first birth rates (16) • Excess legacies of disadvantage only for women and link more to timing (3) than context (1) • Four (of 12) ‘structural’ parameters capture remaining gender differences

28. Cohort • Remarkably only one interplay of childhood disadvantage with cohort identified – social housing • There is also only one ‘structural’ element for cohort, with an IRR of 1.31 for the ‘not married’ group in the 1970 cohort, reflecting the rise in first births outside marriage (both cohabiting and not in partnership)

29. Limitations • Further paper needed to explore links of childhood disadvantages, gender and cohort to partnership contexts • Also correlated errors and multistate multiprocess models?

30. Conclusion • Childhood disadvantages are ‘drivers’ of ‘risky’ demographic behaviours: • out-of-wedlock (or out-of-partnership) • Youthful parenthood? • Important consequences (not documented here): • Partnership instability • Less father involvement • Socioeconomic disadvantage • Poorer mental health • Gender inequities – penalties of risky parenthood greater for mothers than fathers