Effect of Age and Marital Status on Number of Children

The number of children an individual gets is highly dependent on the nature of their social lives. From past studies and analyses, married people tend to get more children than the unmarried (Todesco, 2011). On the other hand, divorced individuals are highly reluctant on getting additional children as well as single mothers. The present analysis aimed at investigating the linear relationship between number of children an individual has with their age and marital statuses. A dummy variable for marital status with value labels 1 for married and 0 otherwise. The analysis expected that married people have a higher probability of having many children as well as older people. In this framework, there was the expectation of a positive relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variables. 

Multiple regression analysis was conducted using SPSS for data obtained from GSS.ORG for the years 2006 to 2018. For this analysis, respondent number of children on nominal level of measurement. The created dummy variable was extracted from a nominally measured variable similar to that of age of respondent variable. The table below indicates the SPSS analysis results. 

From the table, it is certain that both the created dummy variable and the age of respondent variables have a positive impact on the dependent variable. The equation below presents the linear model relating the three variables. 

Number of children = -0.195 + 0.768 (Marital status dummy) + 0.038 (Age of respondent) 

References 

Todesco, L. (2011). A Matter of Number, Age or Marriage? Children and Marital Dissolution in Italy.  Population Research and Policy Review,    30 (2), 313-332. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41487438