Employment Opportunities and Pre-marital Births in Britain

In 1999, nearly two-fifths of births in Britain were outside marriage. This study estimates the impact of employment opportunities in the local labour market on the probability that a childless never married woman has a birth outside marriage. It uses the unemployment rate in the travel-to-work area in which the woman lives as the indicator of employment opportunities. The estimates indicate poorer employment opportunities increase the pre-marital first birth rate and discourage union formation. Acknowledgement: I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for financial support for this research and to Tim Butcher and Mark Taylor for constructing the matched BHPS and NOMIS (National On-line Manpower Information Service) travel-to-work area file, which I have relied on in the analysis in this paper.