Unwed Births Reach 40 Percent, CDC Reports

Births to unwed mothers in the U.S. reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Wednesday. While the number of teen births is up 1 percent, it's women in their twenties who account for the majority of unwed births.

David Popenoe, founder and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, called this bad news and one of the greatest family changes of our time.

"Children born out of wedlock tend to have a much harder time in life on average than children born in wedlock," he told Family News in Focus. "I wish we as a nation were speaking out more forcefully against this trend."

Popenoe added that many of these out-of-wedlock births are the children of people who are cohabiting.

"We know that those people are going to break up at a much higher rate than married couples."

In 1940, only about 4 percent of births were out of wedlock.

Contact: Devon Williams
Source: CitizenLink
Source URL: http://www.citizenlink.org
Publish Date: March 20, 2009
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