Researchers in the decision making tradition usually analyze multiple decisions within experiments by aggregating choices across individuals and using the individual subject as the unit of analysis. This approach can mask important variations and patterns within the data. Specifically, it...

This paper offers the first birth-cohort test of the Wilson-Willis model of black-white differences in nonmarital childbearing. Cohort data are uniquely suited to the model, and unlike prior evidence, support the power of the model’s predictions: For blacks, the nonmarital birth share rises,...

This paper proposes and tests a simple joint explanation for i) increases in marital and nonmarital birth rates in the United States over recent decades, ii) the dramatic rise in the share of nonmarital births, and iii) the pronounced racial differences in the timing of childbearing. The...

We develop a model of fertility and marriage that implies a magnified effect of marriage rates on the share of births to unmarried women. For U.S. data, plots and regression estimates support the prediction that the share of unmarried births is driven primarily by the square of the share of...

In a 2006 article in Demography, Jo AnnaGray Jean Stockard and Joe Stone (GSS i)observe that among black women and white women ages 20 to 39, birth rates increased sharply for unmarried women over the period 1974 to 2000. But they also increased for married women, as well, and yet the total...

The authors employ a newly developed method to disentangle age, period and cohort effects on nonmarital fertility ratios (NFR) from 1972 to 2002 for U.S. women aged 20-44 – with a focus on three specific cohort factors: family structure, school enrollment, and the ratio of men to women. All...

Much of the sharp rise in the share of nonmarital births in the United States has been attributed to changes in the fertility choices of unmarried and married women - in response, it is often argued, to various public policies. In contrast, we develop and test a model that attributes the rise to...

This paper offers the first birth-cohort test of the Wilson-Willis model of black-white differences in nonmarital childbearing. Cohort data are uniquely suited to the model, and unlike prior evidence, support the power of the model’s predictions: For blacks, the nonmarital birth share rises,...