Past Featured Event

Michaelmas Term 2015 Seminar Series: Narratives on Marriage and Co-Habitation

15 October 2015 17:00 - 03 December 2015 15:30

This seminar series is hosted by the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing Convenor: Professor Sarah Harper, Director, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing Week one: Please note that the Institute seminar on 15th October is part of the OMS 10 year celebration. The Marriage and Cohabitation Series thus starts on Week two. All welcome

Abstract: The presentation will recount some exploratory work which was carried out following an earlier project on childlessness – which formed a chapter entitled: Childlessness: choice and circumstances*. The project considered the patterns and trends of childlessness in Europe - and also the factors associated with childlessness in Great Britain, including, briefly, cohabitation. This latter aspect was subsequently explored further (which will form the presentation) - firstly the overall context: the trends in childlessness; the growth in the prevalence of cohabitation; and the profile of the marital and cohabitational histories of women and men in Great Britain. Then, using data from the British Household Panel Study from which childlessness and marital and cohabitational histories may be derived, patterns of childlessness are examined by a number of factors: number of cohabitations; mean age at first partnership; way in which the first partnership ended; total time spent outside partnerships; and odds ratios of childlessness (not) being independent of marital/cohabitational histories.

*in: Fertility rates and population decline: no time for children? edited by Ann Buchanan and Anna Rotkirch, 2013, Palgrave Macmillan.