Explaining Increases in Non-Marital Births: Cohort Effects of Childhood Religion and Family Structure on Non-Marital Conceptions and Shotgun Weddings

Christopher Wildeman, Princeton University

This paper considers the effects of childhood religious attendance and family structure on two stages of having a non-marital birth -- having a non-marital conception and having a shotgun wedding among those experiencing a non-marital conception -- for five cohorts of American women using data from the 1988 and 1995 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth. Results show a large negative association between growing up in a two-parent family and conceiving outside of marriage and a large positive association between growing up in a two-parent family and having a shotgun wedding among those experiencing a non-marital conception. Although weekly religious attendance has weaker and less consistently significant effects on the risk of having a non-marital conception and having a shotgun wedding, it appears that growing up religious also diminished the probability of having a non-marital birth somewhat for some recent birth cohorts of American women.