An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States

1996/05/01 by George A. Akerlof, Janet L. Yellen, Michael L. Katz · 4 citations
Social Sciences · #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics #Work-Family Balance Challenges #Family Dynamics and Relationships

paper · doi:10.2307/2946680

openalex publication_date 1996/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/25

Abstract

This paper relates the erosion of the custom of shotgun marriage to the legalization of abortion and the increased availability of contraception to unmarried women in the United States. The decline in shotgun marriage accounts for a significant fraction of the increase in out-of-wedlock first births. Several models illustrate the analogy between women who do not adopt either birth control or abortion and the hand-loom weavers, both victims of changing technology. Mechanisms causing female immiseration are modeled and historically described. This technology-shock hypothesis is an alternative to welfare and job-shortage theories of the feminization of poverty.

Cited by

• The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions
• Does Parents’ Access to Family Planning Increase Children’s Opportunities? Evidence from the War on Poverty and the Early Years of Title X
• Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954–2003
• African-American family structure [wikipedia]