| Abstract: | Parents with children from both past and current unions create complex stepfamilies. The author investigated the association of past‐union children with intentions for a second or third child in the current union of 1,739 couples in the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study. Both partners' reports of their own resident and nonresident past‐union children as well as fathers' reports of involvement with nonresident past‐union children create a comprehensive measurement of past‐union children. The analysis revealed that coresident past‐union children were more closely associated with childbearing intentions than were nonresident past‐union children and that weekly contact with nonresident children had a stronger link to intentions than did payments. These results suggest that the value of the past‐union children as siblings and the time commitment made to these children are particularly salient to parents' decisions about further childbearing in their current union. |
