This brief uses new data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how welfare and child support policies, as well as labor market conditions, affect family formation among unwed couples in urban areas who gave birth in the late 1990s. Baseline data from interviews at the child’s birth and data from one-year follow-up interviews with 3,286 couples was used. Thus, union formation decisions subsequent to a nonmarital birth was explored: some parents may choose to marry, while other parents may remain unmarried and live together, remain romantically involved but live apart, or end their relationship. This research adds to the previous literature in this area by analyzing a representative sample of unwed births and by examining union types-especially cohabitation and so-called “”visiting”” relationships (romantically involved but living apart)-that have received little or no attention in past studies. (Author abstract modified)