Focus On Rise In Teen Pregnancy 'Obscures More Fundamental Problem' Of Out-of-Wedlock Births, Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 25 May 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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The "intense focus" on teenage pregnancy in the U.S. "has obscured a more fundamental problem in childbearing trends," W. Bradford Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Institute for American Values and a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that in 2007 about 40% of U.S. children were born out of wedlock, more than three times as high as the 11% in 1970, Wilcox writes. A significant majority -- about 60% -- of these infants were born to women in their 20s, while 23% were born to teens. "None of this should come as a surprise," Wilcox continues, adding that a 2003 Gallup survey found that 64% of adults ages 18 to 29 believed it was "morally acceptable" to have a child out of wedlock.

He writes that "we should take cold comfort from the fact that ... most of the recent growth in non-marital childbearing has been driven by births to cohabitating couples." However, such couples are "notoriously unstable, in large part because their relationships are not anchored by the legal, social and moral commitments associated with marriage," Wilcox writes. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan and Bowling Green State University found that half of the children born to cohabitating couples "saw their parents part by age five, compared with only 15% of children born to married parents," he writes. "[S]uch instability is hard on young children," and a "growing body of research ... indicates that kids who spend time in cohabitating unions are significantly more likely to experience" emotional problems, difficulties in school, and physical and sexual abuse than children in "intact, married homes," Wilcox writes.

Although groups like the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy "have been focusing on contraceptive failure among young adults" to explain the increase in children born out of wedlock, Wilcox writes that there are "three more likely explanations." The first is that young people in the U.S. "have been postponing marriage, but they are not postponing sex and cohabitation," he says. "Second, the working-class and poor men have seen their real wages fall since the early 1970s, which makes them less attractive as husbands to their girlfriends and to the mothers of their children," according to Wilcox. Lastly, the "meaning of marriage" in America has "changed over the past 40 years," he writes. According to Wilcox, sociologist Andrew Cherlin said that marriage "used to be the 'foundation' for adulthood, sex, intimacy and childbearing" but now is "viewed by many Americans as a 'capstone' that signals that a couple has arrived -- financially, professionally and emotionally."

Cherlin's theory "also helps to explain why college-educated mothers are bucking the trend toward having children out of wedlock," Wilcox writes, noting that a recent Child Trends study found that more than 50% of women with a high-school degree or less are having children out of wedlock, compared with 7% of college-educated women. "It is easier for these women to attain the level of achievement that the newer, luxury model of marriage before childbearing requires," Wilcox writes, concluding, "So the next time you hear a college-educated academic or advocate talking about marriage and motherhood, do as they do, not as they say" (Wilcox, Wall Street Journal, 5/22).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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