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Explaining Teen Childbearing and Cohabitation: Community Embeddedness and Primary Ties *
Author(s) -
Houseknecht Sharon K.,
Lewis Susan K.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
family relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1741-3729
pISSN - 0197-6664
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2005.00345.x
Subject(s) - embeddedness , cohabitation , strong ties , social capital , interpersonal ties , family ties , demographic economics , sociology , psychology , social psychology , developmental psychology , political science , economics , social science , genealogy , law , history
This investigation examines whether access to social capital reduces the chance that teens will cohabit or have a nonmaritally conceived birth. Using data from a nationally representative panel study of eighth‐grade girls and their parents, we hypothesize that girls who have (and whose families have) dense community ties as well as greater access to primary ties are less likely to have a nonmarital birth and to cohabit as teens and that community embeddedness has an effect net of the effects of primary ties. Our results support this hypothesis. An important policy implication is to increase social relations between adult networks and children that can serve to encourage stable, multigenerational values and discourage “off‐time” family formation.