An Increasing Number Of College-Educated Women Are Having Children Outside Marriage
Family formation in the U.S. used to follow a simple, common-sense pattern: courtship, marriage, children. In the past few decades, this pattern has been thrown off in most demographic groups – except for college-educated adults. Now, however, the pattern is shifting there as well.
For many years now, both the likelihood of cohabitation and the age at which they marry has increased for college-educated women. The numbers of those who had their first children outside of marriage, however, remained modest. But today, the trend is shifting upwards on that statistic. The percentage of college-educated women with a nonmarital first birth is increasing, proving a further disregard for – if not total rejection of – marriage as a foundational feature of family life.