Registering a marriage and having a child in Russia: an analysis of individual biographies based on vital statistics data

Abstract

The paper addresses the link between getting pregnant and getting married in Russia. The authors use 2010 data on current births in selected regions of Russia to analyze the relationship between marriage registration date and the date of conception, as well as age-related and regional features of this relationship. Special attention is given to the phenomenon of registering out-of-wedlock births based on parents’ joint applications as well as to the association between this type of behavior and parents’ age. Using individual data from the 2010 Census the authors examine the change of women’s marital status during the first five years after birth of the first child. The results suggest that the widespread practice of registering marriages during the second trimester of pregnancies still persists in Russia. This is most typical for young people getting married for the first time. Together with the relatively high rates of dissolution of marital unions with children, this supports the interpretation of this kind of marriage as a marker of traditionalist demographic behavior.

Keywords

• fertility
• premarital conceptions
• out-of-wedlock births
• birth statistics
• registration of birth
• registration of marriage