Union Transitions after the First Birth in Chile

The increase in the proportion of children born to cohabiters is usually taken as a sign that societies have reached a stage in the family formation processes where cohabitation is a legitimate alternative to marriage, which is losing importance as an institution. Recent research in Europe has shown that marriage usually takes places among unmarried people in the years that follow the birth of a child, indicating that marriage is being postponed, but it is still the preferred setting for childrearing. This paper analyzes the case of Chile, where the proportion of children born to unmarried mothers is about 70 percent, whereas cohabitation is less than 20 percent. The paper ask whether Chile is the scenery for the same type of union transitions that are being observed in Europe, which may explain the contradiction between the proportion of children born outside of marriage and the proportion of cohabiters