Educated women in Latin America choosing to have children out of wedlock

In Latin America, consensual (common-law) unions are traditionally associated with poorer or indigenous populations. But recent research is turning this conventional wisdom on its head, finding that that in the past 30 years or so consensual unions have become increasingly popular throughout Latin America, including in higher-income groups. In certain countries, such as Panama, common-law partnerships are now as widespread as in Quebec.

Another widely held belief was that only low-income, uneducated women bore children in consensual unions. But a new study led by Benoît Laplante, professor at INRS Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, shows that this is no longer true. The proportion of university-educated women choosing to have children out of wedlock remains relatively small in Latin America, but it is rising significantly. It is simply no longer the case that only uneducated Latin Americans choose to start a family without getting married. Research demonstrates that in most Latin America countries, regardless of level of education, fertility rates correlate with the fact of living in a conjugal relationship, not with the legal nature of the relationship.

"Consensual partnerships among urban, educated people can no longer be viewed merely as precursors to marriage," notes Professor Laplante. "They should be seen as a step in the life-cycle, one which affords the possibility of procreation, as has traditionally been the case in lower socioeconomic strata of Latin American societies."

The study found that, even for the economically privileged, consensual unions and marriage are two coexisting family models. In this regard Latin America is beginning to resemble western European societies and Quebec. This leaves the English-speaking regions of the Americas as the only parts of the continent where marriage is still considered the normative family arrangement for child-rearing by the well-off.

The study was published in the March 2015 issue of the prestigious journal Population and Development Review.