Looking for Murphy Brown: Are College-Educated, Single Mothers Unique?

Abstract

In this paper, we study the 20 percent of unmarried mothers in the U.S. who have attended college. We ask whether these women constitute a distinct subgroup of unmarried mothers in terms of their attitudes toward marriage and men, the characteristics of their partners or the age at which they become mothers. We find evidence that being college educated and single is associated with holding more independent views about marriage, with having lower-quality partners and with increased odds of becoming a mother late in life—above and beyond the main effects of education and marital status. We also find variation across race-ethnic groups. White, educated single mothers most closely resemble the image of the “independent woman,” while African-American and Hispanic mothers are more likely to be partnered with less-educated men.

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