The name is absent

model shows that partnership is more common among women with recent employment
experience and higher qualifications, (especially nvq 4 and 5, graduate and postgraduate
level qualifications), and those living in more advantaged areas. It is also marginally less
common in the three ‘Celtic’ countries. It is clearly debatable whether the avoidance of
lone motherhood is necessarily the outcome of all these other contemporary factors, but
at least the model documents an association.

Table 8 looks only at those with partners (and information from them), and considers the
partner’s employment status. This was one of the adverse consequences of early
motherhood, working through the ‘marriage market’, suggested by Ermisch and Pevalin
(2003b). The first model once again sets out the pattern if age at first motherhood is
considered alone. There is a strong positive association with delaying motherhood up to
age 28 - 30, reaching a plateau through the early thirties, falling somewhat for the oldest
entrants. The second model includes the antecedent variables; this again reduces all of
the coefficients but maintains the overall pattern. Women with less advantaged family
backgrounds or who left school at the minimum age are more likely to have partners who
are out of work. All the ethnic terms are negative, reflecting the higher rates of
unemployment among fathers in the minority ethnic groups (based throughout on the
mother’s ethnic group). Model 3 introduces the contemporary variables entered in table 7,
and model 4 also includes information on the partner’s qualifications and longstanding
illness. These also reduce all of the coefficients on the age at first motherhood, but only
marginally, maintaining the pattern and significance. Delaying motherhood still appears
to increase the probability of any partner being employed, up to the 28 - 30 age band

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