MPIDR Working Paper

How premarital children and childbearing in the current marriage influence family stability

Abstract

By using a Swedish register data set and applying hazard models with unobserved heterogeneity, this study demonstrates that childbearing history plays an important role in predicting the divorce risks of families with various types of premarital children. Families with premarital children definitely have a higher risk of divorce than do those without premarital children. Producing a common child cements bonds in the family but as the youngest common child grows up, his or her role of maintaining family relations weakens. Families with premarital children from the wife´s relation with another man clearly have a higher risk of divorce than do families with other types of premarital children. Additional findings deviate from what has been reported in the literature.