Published Thursday, May 14th, 2009

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there has been a shift in the percentage of children born outside of marriage for the U.S. and other countries in recent years. The unmarried births are even more common in other countries according to the report, which lists 12 European Countries plus Japan. Those who rank above the US are Iceland at 66%, Sweden at 55%, Norway at 54%, France at 50% and Denmark and the UK at 46% and 44% respectively. The lowest percentage of unmarried births came from Japan, which amounted to 2%.

For the US, the 2007 report stated that during the 27 years between reports, unmarried births more than doubled from 18% to 40%. Accordingly, 60% of those births in 2007 were born of women in their early 20s, where before most of the unmarried births were from teen pregnancies. Also, 40% of those women who had children did so as part of a couple. By educational attainment, women who have children outside of marriage do so most between 9^th grade and some college/AA Degree. Examining living arrangements for children of non-married couples shows that for both black and white mothers, the largest number of single mothers have never been married. This report comes as many women with children under 18 years old are leaving the work force.  As for the single father, he is likely to be divorced as well as have a high school degree and some college.

Tags: CDC, Children, Educational Attainment, Social Issues, Teen Birth Rate

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 9:49 am and is filed under Social Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

« Gates Replaces General McKiernan in Afghanistan | New Study to Improve Early Tornado Warning Systems »