Non-Martial Births Rise But Married-Couple Parenting Is Not Obsolete

"The proportion of all births to unmarried women increased to 41.0 percent in 2009, up from 40.6 percent in 2008. This proportion increased for all race and Hispanic-origin population groups except for AIAN (American Indian & Alaska Native) women."

                                                                                    - National Center for Health Statistics[1]

 "Seven-in-ten (69%) say the trend toward more single women having children is bad for society, and 61% say that a child needs both a mother and father to grow up happily."                                                                                                                 - PewRearchCenter [2]

1970-94 Decline: In these 24 years, the percent of children living in married-couple families decreased by 16 percentage points. But for the last 15 years there has been no further decline. 

Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., author of "Children at Risk" (Transaction, 2010), is Senior Fellow, The Beverly LaHaye Institute, Concerned Women for America.

[1] National Center for Health Statistics, "Births: Preliminary Data for 2009," National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 59, Number3, December 21, 2010, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_03.pdf.

[2]  PewResearchCenter Publications, "The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families," November 18, 2010, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1802/decline-marriage-rise-new-families.