Thaindian News

Washington, April 4 (IANS) Twenty-eight percent of all US women with two or more children have them fathered by multiple partners, a new study has revealed.

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

“Multiple partner fertility is an important part of contemporary American family life, and a key component to the net of disadvantage that many poor and uneducated women face every day,” said Dorius, who conducted the first ever national study of the prevalence of multiple partner fertility.

Dorius analysed data on nearly 4,000 US women who were interviewed more than 20 times over a period of 27 years, as part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, according to a Michigan statement.

She found that having children by different fathers was more common among minority women with 59 percent of African-American mothers, 35 percent of Hispanic mothers and 22 percent of white mothers reporting multiple partner fertility.

Women, who were not living with a man when they gave birth and those with low income and less education, were also more likely to have children by different men.

But she also found that multiple partner fertility is surprisingly common at all levels of income and education and is frequently tied to marriage and divorce rather than just single parenthood.

“I was a year into this project before I realised that my mother was one of these women,” Dorius said.

“Raising children who have different fathers is a major factor in the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage.

“Juggling all the different needs and demands of fathers in at least two households, 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,” Dorius said.

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America.