Economic Status, Unemployment, and Family Growth

The economic status of a family has an important bearing on how many children they have, want, and expect and on the timing of family growth-the age at marriage, whether or not the mother was premaritally pregnant, and on the time interval between marriage and successive births. This is one of the findings from a study, made by the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, of mothers in a metropolitan area during a S-year period. The study findings are presented in a report prepared by Ronald Freedman, Director of the Population Studies Center. The study was supported in part by a grant from the Social Security Administrat.ion under the cooperative research and demonstration grant program. Designed to examine important aspects of the relation of economic status to family growth, this study focuses on the patterns and dynamics of family composition and growth and how they are affected by both initial and shifting economic status. The research is based on three sources of data: