Twins and Other Multiples

Twins may seem like a desirable outcome: one pregnancy, two kids. My husband is a twin, and the relationship he has with his brother is extremely special.

But consider the outcomes for the children (from Raising WEG:)

Mothers of multiple-birth children show higher rates of post-partum depression than mothers of singletons.  Mothers of multiple-birth children are slower to attach to their infants, and they learn their infants’ cues and personalities at slower rates than parents of singletons.  Multiple-birth children are delayed in language acquisition by, on average, 6 to 12 months, even adjusting for prematurity and other medical delays.  The early cognitive deficits that result from the suboptimal environment of a multiple-birth environment persist at least through age 8.  Raising multiple infants places enormous stresses, physical and psychological, on parents.  Parents of higher-order multiples in particular have higher divorce rates than other parents.

New Parenthood Leads to Marital Unhappiness

NY1 News: A groundbreaking new study finds most married couples become unhappy after the arrival of a new baby.

Research Round-Up: How Children Affect Marriage

Slate Magazine:  The parents of a girl are nearly 5 percent more likely to divorce than the parents of a boy. The more daughters, the bigger the effect: The parents of three girls are almost 10 percent more likely to divorce than the parents of three boys. 

Divorced women with girls are substantially less likely to remarry than divorced women with boys, suggesting that daughters are a liability in the market for a husband. Not only do daughters lower the probability of remarriage; they also lower the probability that a second marriage, if it does occur, will succeed.

Parents of girls are quite a bit more likely to try for another child than parents of boys, which suggests that there are more parents hoping for sons than for daughters. In the United States, a couple with three girls is about 4 percent more likely to try for another child than a couple with three boys.

Finally, unmarried expecting couples are more likely to get married if they have an ultrasound that reveals the child’s sex as male.

 

Conclusion of the March 2006 Working Paper “Anticipatory analysis and it’s alternatives in life-course research. Part 2: Marriage and First Birth” by Jan M. Hoem and Michaela Kryenfeld:

The study sample comprised West German women with children aged 30 to 39 at the time of interview.

Two years before the birth of your firstborn, your likelihood of marriage quickly increases, peaks during the year when the child is born, and falls off rapidly therafter. Most marriages happen shortly before childbirth – possibly in anticipation of parenthood.
 

Conclusions from Cohabition, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States, a study relased by the CDC based on face-to-face interviews with 10,847 women age 15-44 in 1995.

Divorce is more likely when women had a child before marriage or within 7 months of the marriage. Divorced women are more likely to go on to cohabitation within 5 years and within 10 years if they have no children. Separated women are more likely to divorce if they have no children.  Re-marriage after divorce is more likely for women who have no children and who have children born at least 7 months after the start of their previous marriage. 

Second divorces are more likely for women who have children – 32% second marriage divorce for women with no children, 40% for those with wanted children, 44% for those with unwanted children.