Title: Dramatic increase in the proportion of births outside of marriage in the United States from 1990 to 2016 - Child Trends
Headings: Dramatic increase in the proportion of births outside of marriage in the United States from 1990 to 2016
Dramatic increase in the proportion of births outside of marriage in the United States from 1990 to 2016
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Content: For example, given the strong tendency for people to marry same-race partners, the comparatively high levels of unemployment, underemployment, and incarceration among black men may limit the opportunity of black women to marry (Raley et al., 2015). Additionally, black women outnumber black men among the most highly educated populations, further limiting marriage opportunities and increasing the likelihood that births will occur outside of marriage (Reeves & Guyot, 2017). This may be one explanation for why one-third of births to highly educated black women (and almost half of births to highly educated black women in their twenties) are nonmarital. At the same time, however, cohabitation has increased. Notably, many nonmarital births occur to couples who live together in a cohabiting union but are not formally married. Recent estimates suggest that 62 percent of births to never-married women are to women in a cohabiting union (Lamidi, 2016). However, white and Hispanic women are much more likely to have a birth in the context of a cohabiting union than black women (Payne et al., 2012). Although many children born outside of marriage will thrive, research shows that they are more likely than those born to married parents to be poor, experience multiple changes in family living arrangements as they grow up, and face cognitive and behavioral challenges such as aggression and depression (Child Trends, 2016).