If Knot Now, When? The Impact of Delayed Marriage Among Twenty-somethings

Young adults desire stable marriage and family life even while they engage in unmarried sex and parenting. We should encourage and help young adults achieve these goals instead of trying to make birth control “sexy.”

A new report, co-authored by Kay Hymowitz, Jason Carroll, W. Bradford Wilcox, and Kelleen Kaye, and co-sponsored by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, The Relate Institute, and the National Marriage Project, shows us the new face of unmarried motherhood: twenty-something women.

According to the report, titled “Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America,” unmarried twenty-something mothers are more common than teen mothers. “By age 25, 44 percent of women have had a baby, while only 38 percent have married,” the report details. “By the time they turn 30, about two-thirds of American women have had a baby, typically out of wedlock. Overall, 48 percent of first births are to unmarried women, most of them in their twenties.”

Among women with college degrees, 12 percent of first births are to unmarried women. However, for those with less than college degrees, the percentages are much higher.

Among those women with high school degrees and perhaps some college education, 58 percent of first births are to unmarried women. Among high school dropouts, 83 percent of firstborn children are born to unmarried women. For these women, an economic recession and a struggling job market have already hindered upward mobility, but out-of-wedlock childrearing only further reduces chances of prosperity and flourishing.

But much like Michelle, many of these young adults are torn by the tension of their desire to have a child with the seemingly bad timing or situation of their pregnancy. In fact, according to the Knot Yet report, “roughly half of unmarried young adults . . . said they would like to have a baby now if things were different (53 percent of men and 47 percent of women), and even among those who said it was important to avoid pregnancy right now, over a third went on to say they would be happy if they got pregnant.”

“Not surprisingly,” the report continues, “this ambivalence rises as education levels, marriage prospects, and job opportunities fall.”

Read more at Public Discourse.