Cleaning up Their Act: The Impacts of Marriage, Cohabitation and Fertility on Licit and Illicit Drug Use

Greg J. Duncan, Northwestern University
Paula England, Northwestern University
Bessie Wilkerson, Northwestern University

Mounting evidence suggests that health risk behaviors such as illicit drug use change in response to marriage, childbirth and other demographic events (Bachman, Wadsworth, O’Malley, Johnston, and Schulenberg, 1997; Umberson, 1987; 1992). However, much of this evidence is either cross-sectional or fails to track longitudinal changes surrounding the actual occurrence of a life event. Our study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to relate changes in smoking, binge drinking, marijuana use and cocaine use to the first occurrence of cohabitation, marriage, nonmarital and marital births. Preliminary results indicate that all four life events are linked to substantial decreases in at least some of the risk behaviors. Illicit behaviors appear more responsive to events than do licit behaviors, changes are much more pronounced for marital than nonmarital births and somewhat more pronounced for marriage than for cohabitation. Women’s responses are stronger than men’s for several of the behaviors.