With or without you. Partnership context of first conceptions and births in Hungary

Abstract

Using notions from the Second Demographic Transition theory and the Pattern of Disadvantage argument, I study how women’s risk of a first conception within different union types (single, cohabitation, marriage) is influenced by education in Hungary and whether this influence has changed over time. Additionally, I examine the transition to marriage among women who experienced a non-marital conception. Using the first wave of the Hungarian Generations and Gender Survey from 2004, I conduct discrete time survival analyses and logistic regression. I find a positive educational gradient of marital conceptions, while this gradient is negative for cohabiting conceptions. Moreover, highly educated women are less likely to experience a cohabiting or a single conception than a marital conception compared to their medium educated counterparts. Furthermore, the impact of education on the risk of a single and marital conception changes over time. The positive gradient of education on the risk of a single conception emerged after the transition, while it declined for marital conceptions. No consistent patterns are found for cohabiting conceptions. Additionally, highly educated women and those who experienced a conception while being single are more likely to marry than their lower educated counterparts and those who experienced a cohabiting conception.