TY - JOUR A1 - Kreyenfeld, Michaela A1 - Perelli-Harris, Brienna A1 - Sigle-Rushton, Wendy A1 - Lappegard, Trude A1 - Berghammer, Caroline A1 - Keizer, Renske T1 - The educational gradient of nonmarital childbearing in Europe JF - Population and Development Review N2 - Nearly every European Country has experienced some increase in nonmarital childbearing, largely due to increasing births within cohabitation. Relatively few studies in Europe, however, investigate the educational gradient of childbearing within cohabitation or how it changed over time. Using retrospective union and fertility histories, we employ competing risk hazard models to examine the educational gradient of childbearing in cohabitation in eight countries across europe. In all countries studied, birth risks within cohabitation demonstrated a negative educational gradient. When directly comparing cohabiting fertility with marital fertility, the negative educational gradient persists in all countries except Italy, although differences were not significant in Austria, France, and West Germany. To explain these findings, we present an alternative explanation for the increase in childbearing within cohabitation that goes beyond the explanation of the Second Demographic Transition and provides a new interpretation of the underlying mechanisms that may influence childbearing within cohabitation. Y1 - 2010 UR - http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2010-004.pdf SN - 0098-7921 N1 - Available as Working Paper from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research: http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2010-004.pdf VL - 36 IS - 4 SP - 775 EP - 801 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken (NJ) [u.a.] ER -