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) ...

We employ newly developed methods to disentangle age, period and cohort effects on nonmarital fertility ratios (NFRs) from 1972 to 2002 for black and white women aged 20-44 in the United States. We focus on three cohort ...

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 ...