Neal, Derek. 2004. "The Relationship Between Marriage Market Prospects and Never-Married Motherhood." Journal of Human Resources 39(4): 938-957.

Many studies document a clear relationship between the supply of marriageable men and marriage rates, but few studies find that the supply of marriageable men affects the number of women who choose to be single mothers. The model presented here addresses this puzzle. Many women view either marriage or single motherhood as an inframarginal choice because a third option, remaining single without children, is relatively attractive to them. Regression models that implicitly treat all women as potential mothers, who simply choose whether to raise children inside or outside marriage, may yield false inferences concerning the relationship between marriage markets prospects and family structure choices.

Derek Neal is a professor in the department of economics at the University of Chicago and is an NBER research associate. He is grateful to Dan Black, Serguey Braguinsky, Jonathan Gruber, John Kennan, Robert Moffitt, Jim Walker, and Robert Willis for helpful comments. He owes special thanks to Larry Samuelson. He claims responsibility for all errors. The data used in this article can be obtained upon request from the author.