Effects of Children on Women's Remarriage Prospects 1

Abstract

LIFE table analyses of data for white women from the 1975 Current Population Survey showed that the effects of the number of children women had at divorce on their remarriage probabilities depended on the women's age at divorce. Among women divorcing before age 25, being childless increased the likelihood of remarriage; but among women divorcing at 35 or older, having no children decreased it. For women divorcing at age 25 to 34, there was no effect. The failure of previous studies to take into account this interaction between children and age of woman at divorce, along with other problems discussed and corrected in the article, may explain the conflicting results obtained by earlier research.

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