JESSE POWELL WRITES:

The federal government has released the preliminary birth data for 2008. For the first time the out-of-wedlock birth ratio is over 40 percent in the United States, at 40.6. For non-Hispanic whites the ratio is at 28.6 percent; for Hispanics (who may be of any race) it is 52.5 percent. For non-Hispanic blacks it is at 72.3 percent.

Of special note, the black out-of-wedlock birth ratio stayed about the same for 10 whole years, from 1995 until 2005 at about 70 percent (in 1995 it was 69.9 and in 2005 it was 69.3.) One would have hoped that this ratio had hit some kind of natural ceiling and that it couldn’t go any higher. Perhaps that was the end point of family breakdown and human resiliency meant it couldn’t continue to climb. Sadly, that is not the case. The black out-of-wedlock birth ratio has risen steadily and quickly for three years in a row. In 2005, the non-Hispanic black out-of-wedlock birth ratio was 69.9. In 2006, it was 70.7. In 2007, it was 71.6 and in 2008, 72.3 percent. 

For some history on the black out-of-wedlock birth ratio, from the end of slavery until 1920 the black out-of-wedlock birth ratio was about 10 percent. From 1920 until 1960 this ratio went up to 20 percent. In 1970, the ratio was at 38 percent. In 1980, it was 55 percent. In 1990, it was 67. 

Here are comparable figures for whites. In 1920 the white out-of-wedlock birth ratio was about one percent. In 1960 it was two percent. In 1970 it was six percent (to be more precise in 1960 it was 2.3 and in 1970 it was 5.7). In 1980 it was 11 percent. By 1990, it had climbed to 20 percent; followed by 25 percent in 1995 and 32 percent in 2005. These figures are for whites including Hispanics; that is why they are higher than the figures for non-Hispanic whites mentioned above. 

In 2008, 53.5 of all births were non-Hispanic whites; 14.7 percent were non-Hispanic blacks; and 24.4 percent were Hispanics of any race. The total fertility rate for non-Hispanic whites was 1.84. For non-Hispanic blacks it was 2.11. For Hispanics it was 2.91. For the nation as a whole the total fertility rate was 2.09. The replacement fertility level needed to sustain any given population is 2.10.

Lawrence Auster writes:

The illegitimacy rate is desolating news.

This was a big big issue 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Now conservatives never talk about it. 

The conservatives stopped talking about it about 10 years ago, because there was a slight downtick (from, like 69 percent black illegitimacy to 68), and the conservatives said, “Yippee, the problem has turned around!”

Brittany writes:

Some children born out of wedlock end up in two-parent homes. My parents lived together for a little bit and they married when I was quite young so I still grew up in a two-parent household. Sadly, my situation is unusual and this is becoming more common.

Laura asks Jesse:

Does the illegitmacy rate of one percent for whites in 1920 include Hispanics?

Jesse replies:

It included all Hispanics who defined themselves as white, but this was a negligible number. Essentially, it was non-Hispanic whites.

My information basically comes from two sources; the US government National Center for Health Statistics and miscellaneous sociological studies for the information about blacks in 1960 and before and for whites in the 1920 period. The information for the white out-of-wedlock ratio for 1960 is precise. The 20% estimate for the black ratio in 1960 is an estimate. The assumption for the 1960 data for both blacks and whites includes Hispanics. They did not break down the racial categories precisely for the 1960 data. Indeed, for the 1960 data it was simply All Races and Whites as the categories. Blacks were not separated out until 1969. Hispanics were not separated out until 1990. The term “non-Hispanic White” and “non-Hispanic Black” and indeed “Hispanic (Hispanics may be of any race)” didn’t start until 1990. 

The first specific data for blacks is 1969 and in 1969 the black out-of-wedlock birth ratio was 34.9%. The first specific data for Hispanics was 1990 and in 1990 the Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth ratio was 36.7%. 

I think I saw an estimate once for the black out-of-wedlock ratio being 25% in 1965 and so basically to get my 20% estimate for 1960 I think I just went backwards in time 5 years from 1965 and figured the ratio growing at 1% a year for blacks starting in 1960 was reasonable so a 20% estimate for 1960 for blacks should be about right. 

In the report written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan dated March 1965 titled “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action” some statistics for out-of-wedlock birth ratios are given. I believe this report is my source for saying that in 1960 about 20% of black births were born out-of-wedlock. 

The report states: 

Nearly One-Quarter of Negro Births are now Illegitimate

 Both white and Negro illegitimacy rates have been increasing, although from dramatically different bases. The white rate was 2 percent in 1940; it was 3.07 percent in 1963. In that period, the Negro rate went from 16.8 percent to 23.6 percent. 

The number of illegitimate children per 1,000 live births increased by 11 among whites in the period 1940-63, but by 68 among nonwhites. There are, of course, limits to the dependability of these statistics. There are almost certainly a considerable number of Negro children who, although technically illegitimate, are in fact the offspring of stable unions. On the other hand, it may be assumed that many births that are in fact illegitimate are recorded otherwise. Probably the two opposite effects cancel each other out. 

On the urban frontier, the nonwhite illegitimacy rates are usually higher than the national average, and the increase of late has been drastic. 

In the District of Columbia, the illegitimacy rate for nonwhites grew from 21.8 percent in 1950, to 29.5 percent in 1964. 

A similar picture of disintegrating Negro marriages emerges from the divorce statistics. Divorces have increased of late for both whites and nonwhites, but at a much greater rate for the latter. In 1940 both groups had a divorce rate of 2.2 percent. By 1964 the white rate had risen to 3.6 percent, but the nonwhite rate had reached 5.1 percent — 40 percent greater than the formerly equal white rate.

 So, back to the source of my estimates, the title, written for 1965, implies the out-of-wedlock ratio for blacks is 25%. A solid number for 1963 is given as 23.6%. I make a guess the ratio was growing at 1% a year for the period from 1960 to 1965 and so I estimate the ratio at 20% for 1960 for blacks. 

Now, the source of my estimates for 1920 and before and from 1920 to 1960 comes from bits and pieces I picked up from historical data. Some historical data is given in the Patrick Moynihan report I mention above and some historical data comes from other sources. 

One of my sources for the earlier estimates of black and white illegitimacy ratios was “The Negro Family” by E. Franklin Frazier written in 1928. There were some sociological studies done on the Negro family in the 1910s and 1920s that have some reports on white and black illegitimacy ratios in different states at different times and basically I averaged what they said about white ratios and what they said about black ratios around 1920 and that is where I get my 1% estimate for whites and 10% estimate for blacks. 

So, the information about 1920 is fuzzy but reasonably close to the 1% and 10% marks for whites and blacks respectively. The information for whites is definite in 1960 and for blacks is close to precise for the 1960 estimate. Starting in 1970 the information is totally precise except Hispanics aren’t mentioned as a separate category. Starting in 1990 Hispanics are separated out and you have the categories non-Hispanic whites and blacks and All Whites or Blacks as separate categories. 

So, to go back to your original question, technically, the 1% out-of-wedlock ratio for whites in 1920 would refer to all whites, including those of Hispanic origin who look white and call themselves white but in reality the number of white Hispanics was trivial in 1920 in the surveys I read so you can think of it as being non-Hispanic whites for all practical purposes. To get into the details about Hispanics you would have to know about family stability in Mexico in the 1920s of which I am unaware. I do know that family stability in Mexico is quite bad today. 

In “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action” report it does say, “In 1960, Negroes were 92.1 percent of all non-whites. The remaining 7.9 percent is made up largely of Indians, Japanese, and Chinese.” This shows the number of Hispanics in America was very small in 1960 and presumably even smaller in 1920, so again it can be assumed the 1% out-of-wedlock birth ratio for whites in 1920 is based on whites descended from European immigrants. 

Jesse adds:

This is a bit off subject, but in Japan the out-of-wedlock birth ratio was 1% in 1980. Since then it has climbed to something like 2.5% today. I think the out-of-wedlock ratio was something like 6% or 8% right after World War II in Japan but Japanese society then drove its out-of-wedlock ratio all the way down to a minimum of 1% in 1980 before it very slowly but steadily started to rise again. Japanese society had some kind of magic that we in the Western world lacked.

Janet, a black reader, writes:

The current state of the black community is like most societal problems, a sin problem. More than 70% illegitimacy is not the result of past discrimination. In the words of Walter Williams (another of my favorite Black conservative columnists): 

“It’s not like you’re walking down the street and pregnancy strikes you; children are a result of a conscious decision. For the most part, female-headed households are the result of short-sighted, self-destructive behavior of one or two people.” 

The black illegitimacy rate is close to 70 percent. Less than 40 percent of black children live in two-parent families. This produces devastating socioeconomic consequences, but is it caused by racial discrimination? Or, might it be a legacy of slavery? In the early 1900s, black illegitimacy was a tiny fraction of today’s rate. Roughly 75 percent, and in New York City 85 percent, of black children lived in two-parent households. The fact of lower illegitimacy and more intact families, at a time when blacks were much closer to slavery and faced greater discrimination, suggests that today’s unprecedented illegitimacy and weak family structure has nothing to do with discrimination and slavery. It’s explained better by promiscuity and irresponsibility, and as such it’s not a civil rights problem.”

Laura writes:

The more blacks are granted moral status by virtue of being black, the more immoral they become. Why work to be good, when you are born good? But it’s not sexual sin that is the only factor here, but the sin of government dependency, a development in which whites have been fully complicit.

The breakdown of the black family is incontrovertible proof  that society cannot function when women en masse become economically independent of men.

Phantom Blogger writes:

On the topic of Japanese out-of-wedlock births, one of the reasons they may be so low could stem from the fact that the Japanese have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. According to this BBC report, women who have children are expected to live up to Japanese society’s rules and because women don’t want to, they’re just not getting married or having children. A quote from the article:

“But many Japanese women say it is social attitudes, rather than policies, which put them off getting married or having children.

Men are still expected to spend long hours at the office and little time at home, while there is pressure on women to give up work when they have children.”

Hence women who do believe in the traditional roles will prefer to have children in wedlock because of social attitudes, but most women just choose not to do either.

It sounds like in the end up, the Japanese will just become like us in the West, with the same feminist views on female independence and the role of women in the workplace, that will eventually lead to the adoption of the same sexual morality as well.

Karen I. writes:

Welfare benefits are significant for mothers who remain single and they also benefit from the father’s support, and often the support of extended family as well. A significant number of unmarried parents cohabitate. Many sources cite the number to be around 25 percent. Welfare benefits, including medical insurance, cash assistance and free childcare make welfare a deterrent to marriage for those on the fence. Once, a baby on the way made marriage much more likely. Now, couples who are in the situation of an unplanned pregnancy and on the fence about marriage look at the welfare benefits available to single mothers and make a calculating decision against it. Of course, this is short-sighted as the long-term outlook is bleak. Equally short-sighted is the judgment of women who are unhappy in their marriages and file for divorce after they decide the state makes a better father than the child’s biological one. Without welfare taking the place of fathers, the marriage rate would go up, the out of wedlock birth rate would plummet, and the divorce rate would go down.

Laura writes:

It is not only welfare that causes out-of-wedlock births to rise, but the fact that women are almost assured of child support from a man who is the father of their children, but to whom they have never been married. This is wrong. No man should be required to pay child support to a woman to whom he has never been married. (He should receive extreme social pressure to marry her, including ostracism if he does not.) I know this sounds harsh and unfair, and I’m not saying voluntary payment should never occur. But state-mandated child support takes the responsibility for pregnancy out of the hands of women. Along with welfare payments, it is not in their best interests in the long run.

Laura writes to Jesse:

Do you know how much the illegitimacy rate is affected by the decline in fertility among married women?

Jesse writes:

Specifically to your question, there is some effect on the illegitimacy ratio from the decline in the birth rate of married women but it is not very great. Lots of information is provided about birth rates broken down by years since 1980 and race of mother and age of mother in the “Births: Final Data for 2006” report from the National Center for Health Statistics. Explicit data is given for birth rates of unmarried woman and birth rates for all women. Except in a few cases, birth rates for married women are not provided explicitly but can be figured out through various mathematical manipulations. 

There was a major fall in the overall fertility rate in America from 1960 to 1976. The peak Total Fertility Rate in 1960 was about 3.33. It then dropped steadily to a minimum TFR in 1976 of 1.74. It has since risen to a level of 2.10 in 2006. The fertility rate for all women, ages 15 to 44, didn’t change much from 1980 to 2006. It was 68.4 per 1000 in 1980 and 68.5 per 1000 in 2006. In 1980, unmarried women had a fertility rate of 29.4 and married women had a fertility rate of 97.0. In 2006, the rate for unmarried women was 50.6 and the rate for married women was 88.0. So, the overall birth rate was flat during this period but the rate for married women fell 9.3% while the rate for unmarried women rose 72.1%. 

Given such a strong rise in the birth rate of unmarried women, it is fair to say that women no longer felt it was a “requirement” to be married before they had children. Women did not feel compelled to save the number of children they wanted to have for when they found the right man first. I think this explains why the birth rate for married women has gone down. The woman has already had some of her children out-of-wedlock, the pressure on her to save having children until she is married has decreased. 

The overall out-of-wedlock birth ratio in 1980 was 18.4%. In 2006 it was 38.5%. If you do some number crunching, with the other data given, you can figure out that among all women aged 15 to 44 years old that in 1980 57.3% of them were married and in 2006 47.9% of them were married. 

So there were 3 different factors going on to explain the rise in the ratio of out-of-wedlock births from 1980 to 2006. The birth rate for married women went from 97.0 to 88.0, a fall of 9.3%. The birth rate for unmarried women went from 29.4 to 50.6, a rise of 72.1%. Finally the proportion of women ages 15 to 44 who were married dropped from 57.3% to 47.9%. 

The actual out-of-wedlock ratio in 2006 was 38.5%. The biggest contribution to the rise in out-of-wedlock births comes from the rise in the birth rate of unmarried women. If the unmarried birth rate stayed at 1980 levels in 2006 then the out-of-wedlock ratio in 2006 would have been 26.7%. The next most important factor was the decrease in the proportion of women ages 15 to 44 who were married. If the percent of women married stayed at 1980 levels in 2006 the out-of-wedlock ratio in 2006 would have been 30.0%. The smallest factor increasing the ratio of out-of-wedlock births was the decline in the birth rate of married women. If the birth rate of married women stayed at 1980 levels in 2006 then the out-of-wedlock ratio in 2006 would have been 36.2%. 

If you look at the contribution of the three factors from a mathematical point of view, from the view of how much each factor multiplied the unmarried birth ratio more so than it otherwise would have been, then the exact contribution of each factor is 53.3% due to the increase in the unmarried birth rate, 37.1% due to the decrease in the proportion of married women aged 15 to 44, and 9.6% due to the decrease in the birth rate of married women. 

However, not everything worked in the direction of increase in the out-of-wedlock birth ratio from 1980 to 2006. The birth rate for younger women went down during this period and the birth rate of older women went up, and the ratio of out-of-wedlock births is much higher for younger women than it is for older women. Women delaying having children until they are older has been a factor keeping the out-of-wedlock ratio lower than it otherwise would be. If women in 2006 had their children at the same ages they did in 1980, keeping their out-of-wedlock birth ratios the same for each age group, the out-of-wedlock birth ratio in 2006 would have been 45.9% instead of 38.5%. The shift of women having their children later in life reduced the out-of-wedlock birth ratio a whole 7.4 percentage points over the 1980 to 2006 period. 

Brittany writes:

I disagree about not giving unmarried women child support. Both the man and woman should take responsibility because both of them made the baby. How is it fair for the woman to take all the responsiblity while a man can do absolutely nothing for the child? 

I don’t know about about shotgun marriages in some cases.  Some of those marriages would be an absolute disaster and would end in divorce. What if the parents are two immature sixteen year olds?

Laura writes:

There is a simple age-old solution: pre-marital chastity. There will always be people who fail to practice it. There is the option of adoption or hasty marriage. Many children did perfectly well under shotgun marriages, far better than children raised in one-parent homes.  The divorce rate was lower when shotgun marriages were more common.

You don’t seem to get it. The whole idea is to make both women and men responsible for children.

Brittany writes:

I feel that illegitimacy has gotten out of control and we have to reduce it but at the same time we can’t return to this time period. 

Laura writes:

These women suffered far less than fatherless children do today.

I don’t share your vision of a perfect world. 

Michael S. writes:

Brittany writes:

“I feel that illegitimacy has gotten out of control…”

That’s not a feeling. It’s a thought. It’s… dare I say it… a judgment. So does Brittany think, or not?

Speaking of judgment, the next time someone gets on your case about being “judgmental,” just send them here.

Please follow and like us: