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Births to Cohabiting Couples at All-Time High |
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This Research Brief examines the rise in nonmarital childbearing and the number of births to cohabiting couples, as well as the characteristics of women who have births within cohabiting relationships, compared with women who have births within marriage or births outside of any union. Of these non-marital births, more than one-half were to cohabiting women (as opposed to women who were outside any union), which translates into 19 percent of all births. The proportion of non-marital births that occur within cohabiting unions has been increasing over time. More than one-third of births occur outside of marriage and one-half of those births are to cohabiting couples, 2001* All the 2001 data on relationship status at birth in this brief were obtained from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics within the U.S. Department of Education. Unless otherwise noted, the analyses presented in this brief refer to a sample of 10,040 children who lived with their biological or adoptive mother at the time of the ECLS-B baseline interview, and whose mothers provided information on their marital or cohabitation status at the child's birth. Findings in this brief are drawn from two papers, and are supplemented by original analyses by Child Trends. Many cohabiting parents expect to marry their partners, however few actually do. Resources should be available to help all unmarried couples who wish to marry to form healthy marriages and healthy, supportive environments for their children. Three quarters of pregnancies that occur outside of any union were not intended.
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