S. Philip Morgan – författare

This book explores the shifting patterns of parenthood in the United States over the past century, focusing on the timing of first births and the social, economic, and cultural factors that influence these decisions. It highlights the concurrent bloom and bust in fertility trends, where the number of older parents has increased, while the rates of childlessness have also risen, primarily due to delays in childbearing among younger people. Through an examination of historical trends, the book considers how factors such as education, religion, and socioeconomic status influence when individuals choose to become parents. It also compares American fertility patterns with those of other developed nations, particularly Japan, to show how different cultural contexts shape reproductive behavior.The study takes a life course perspective, emphasizing how early life experiences and broader social contexts affect decisions about when to start a family. The book provides a detailed analysis of fertility trends from both macro and micro-levels, using a variety of data sources, including surveys and longitudinal studies. It also investigates the consequences of delayed childbearing, childlessness, and the timing of parenthood on family dynamics, career trajectories, and social roles. In doing so, the book offers insights into the complex interplay between individual choices and societal influences, and discusses the implications for future demographic and social change.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

This book explores the shifting patterns of parenthood in the United States over the past century, focusing on the timing of first births and the social, economic, and cultural factors that influence these decisions. It highlights the concurrent bloom and bust in fertility trends, where the number of older parents has increased, while the rates of childlessness have also risen, primarily due to delays in childbearing among younger people. Through an examination of historical trends, the book considers how factors such as education, religion, and socioeconomic status influence when individuals choose to become parents. It also compares American fertility patterns with those of other developed nations, particularly Japan, to show how different cultural contexts shape reproductive behavior.The study takes a life course perspective, emphasizing how early life experiences and broader social contexts affect decisions about when to start a family. The book provides a detailed analysis of fertility trends from both macro and micro-levels, using a variety of data sources, including surveys and longitudinal studies. It also investigates the consequences of delayed childbearing, childlessness, and the timing of parenthood on family dynamics, career trajectories, and social roles. In doing so, the book offers insights into the complex interplay between individual choices and societal influences, and discusses the implications for future demographic and social change.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

This landmark study traces the life histories of approximately 300 teenage mothers and their children over a seventeen-year period. From interview data and case studies, it provides a vivid account of the impact of early childbearing on young mothers and their children. Some remarkable and surprising results emerge from this unique study of the long term adaptation to early parenthood. It also offers refreshing insights into the unexplored connections between mothers' careers and the development of their children. Adolescent Mothers in Later Life will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in teenage pregnancy.

Fertility rates vary considerably across and within societies, and over time. Over the last three decades, social demographers have made remarkable progress in documenting these axes of variation, but theoretical models to explain family change and variation have lagged behind. At the same time, our sister disciplines—from cultural anthropology to social psychology to cognitive science and beyond—have made dramatic strides in understanding how social action works, and how bodies, brains, cultural contexts, and structural conditions are coordinated in that process. Understanding Family Change and Variation: Toward a Theory of Conjunctural Action argues that social demography must be reintegrated into the core of theory and research about the processes and mechanisms of social action, and proposes a framework through which that reintegration can occur. This framework posits that material and schematic structures profoundly shape the occurrence, frequency, and context of the vital events that constitute the object of social demography. Fertility and family behaviors are best understood as a function not just of individual traits, but of the structured contexts in which behavior occurs. This approach upends many assumptions in social demography, encouraging demographers to embrace the endogeneity of social life and to move beyond fruitless debates of structure versus culture, of agency versus structure, or of biology versus society.