WUNRN
New Study from Population and
Development Review
Finds that Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing Has Become Increasingly Common among
Highly Educated Women
in 13 Latin American Countries
“Consensual
unions”—two people living in the same dwelling in a relationship akin to
marriage—have been an integral part of family life in Latin America for
centuries. In fact, in Latin America, legal marriages and consensual unions are
seen as similarly acceptable family arrangements for bearing and raising
children. However, consensual unions have historically been more common among
disadvantaged populations and in rural areas than among more advantaged
populations and in urban areas—indicating that such unions are rooted in
limited economic and social opportunities. But a study in the March 2015 issue
of Population and Development Review finds that childbearing within a
consensual union among highly educated women has transitioned from rare to
increasingly common in 13 Latin American countries. Population and
Development Review is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal published by the
Population Council.
Educated women in Latin America are increasingly entering consensual unions not
merely as a childless stage on the way to marriage but instead to have children
with their cohabiting partners in a similar fashion to their less-educated
counterparts, according to the study’s authors Benoît Laplante, Teresa
Castro-Martín, Clara Cortina, and Teresa Martín-García. Lead author Benoît
Laplante is a professor at the Université du Québec. The authors compare the
fertility patterns of women in consensual unions and marriage in 13 Latin
American countries using data from the four most recent census rounds. The
countries studied were: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
“Around 1980, in Latin America, having a child while living in a consensual
union was not an option for highly educated women except in Panama,” said
Laplante. “But things have changed. Not only are today’s university-educated
women much more likely to enter a consensual union than they were three or four
decades ago, but their childbearing patterns do not differ much from those of
their married counterparts. Having a child while living in a consensual union
is now an option for highly educated women in most Latin American countries.”
It’s unclear, says Laplante, whether this shift stems from greater tolerance
for “nonconformist” values among more advantaged populations or from an
increase in economic uncertainty in these groups. The spread of childbearing
within consensual union in the upper classes may have been facilitated by
changes in other aspects of family life, including an increase in women’s labor
force participation and the implementation of legal provisions guaranteeing the
economic protection of children in the event of union disruption in most Latin
American countries. More research is needed to understand the causes of this
shift in family formation behaviors in Latin America.
The study, “Childbearing within Marriage and Consensual Union in Latin America,
1980-2010,” is now available free of charge: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00027.x/abstract.