The New Unmarried Moms

For many Americans, the phrase "young single mother" conjures up a picture of a teenage high-school dropout. But that image is out of date. Teen pregnancy rates have been declining for two decades now. Today's typical unmarried mother is a high-school graduate in her early 20s who may very well be living with her child's father.

Despite her apparent advantages, however, she faces many of the same problems that we used to associate with her younger sisters. If 30 is the new 20, today's unmarried 20-somethings are the new teen moms. And the tragic consequences are much the same: children raised in homes that often put them at an enormous disadvantage from the very start of life.

Brian Stauffer

Childbearing outside wedlock is rising among 20-somethings as teen pregnancy has dropped.

Thanks in part to TV shows like "Girls" and predecessors like "Friends," we tend to think of today's 20-something years as a kind of postadolescent transitional period: Young adults move in and out of jobs and careers, hang out at cafes and bars with friends, test drive romantic partners and just try to figure themselves out. This pop-cultural depiction is accurate enough for the third or so of Americans who have a four-year college degree, but it's a long way from the reality of most 20-somethings. By the time they turn 30, about two-thirds of American women have had their first child, usually outside of marriage.

Indeed, 20-somethings are driving America's all-time high level of nonmarital childbearing, which is now at 41% of all births, according to vital-statistics data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sixty percent of those births are to women in their 20s, while teens account for only one-fifth of nonmarital births. Between 1990 and 2008, the teen pregnancy rate has dropped by 42%, while the rate of nonmarital childbearing among 20-something women has risen by 27%.

The shift of unmarried parenthood from teens to 20-somethings is in part an unexpected consequence of delaying marriage. Over four decades, the age for tying the knot has risen steadily to a new high of nearly 27 for women and 29 for men, according to Census figures.

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The good news is that later marriage has given many young people the chance to finish their educations and stabilize careers, finances and youthful passions before starting a family. One big upside is that college-educated women who wait until 30 to marry have higher incomes�about $10,000 more annually�than those who tie the knot in their mid-20s. Later marriage has also helped cut the divorce rate, which has been falling slowly but steadily since 1980.

But if later marriage has been a boon for the college educated, the same cannot be said for Middle Americans�the more than 50% of young adults who have a high-school diploma and maybe some college, but not a bachelor's degree.

In fact, a key part of the explanation for the struggles of today's working and lower middle classes in the U.S. is delayed marriage. When the trend toward later marriage first took off in the 1970s, most of these young men and women delayed having children, much as they had in the past. But by 2000, there was a cultural shift. They still put off their weddings, but their childbearing�not so much. Fifty-eight percent of first births among this group are now to unmarried women.

Among college grads today, only 12% of first births are outside marriage. For high-school dropouts, who tend to be the poorest population, 83% of first births are outside marriage, the CDC data show.