One is not enough

Many women are having children with more than one man. In the first national study on the prevalence of multiple partner fertility, we learn that 28% of all US women with two more children also have two or more men responsible for them.

“I was surprised at the prevalence,” said demographer Cassandra Dorius, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. “

While studies in the past have focused on young women or urban women, this sampling looked across a broad national sample of women who have completed their fertile years.

“I was a year into this project before I realized that my mother was one of these women,” Dorius said. “We tend to think of women with multiple partner fertility as being only poor single women with little education and money, but in fact at some point, mot were married, and working, and going to school, and doing all the things you’re supposed to do to live the American Dream.” She found that multiple partner fertility is common at all levels of income and education and is frequently tied to marriage and divorce.

Still, it’s a factor for continuing disadvantage. “Raising children who have different father is a major factor in the inter-generational transmission of disadvantage,” Dorius said. “Juggling all the different needs and demands of fathers in at least two household, four or more pairs of grandparents, and two or more children creates a huge set of chronic stressors that families have to deal with for decades.”

Source: University of Michigan, ScienceDaily