The effects of child-bearing on women’s marital status: using twin births as a natural experiment

We use the exogenous variation in fertility caused by a twin birth to measure the impact of an unplanned child on a woman’s marital status. Contrary to previous research, we find that an unplanned child has little effect on the married mother’s probability of subsequent divorce or remarriage. For unmarried mothers we find that an unplanned child does reduce the likelihood of marriage, but that the magnitude of this effect appears smaller than previous estimates suggest