The percentage of women who gave birth while unmarried in the United States has declined over the past decade, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The report, titled “Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth: 2023,” found that in 2011, 35.7% of women with a recent birth were unmarried. By 2023, this figure had dropped to 30.9%, representing about 1.2 million women.
In total, four million women between the ages of 15 and 50 gave birth in the last year. Of those who were unmarried at the time of their child’s birth, approximately 35.5% (around 450,000) lived with an unmarried partner.
The findings are based on data from the 2023 American Community Survey (ACS). The report also compares these figures to estimates from the ACS in 2011.
Between 2011 and 2023, either a decrease or no statistically significant change was observed in every state and the District of Columbia regarding the share of recent births among unmarried women.
Among younger mothers, rates remain high but have declined sharply in absolute numbers. In 2023, about 90.1% of women aged 15 to 19 who gave birth were unmarried; however, this group shrank from over 216,000 individuals in 2011 to just over 82,500 in 2023.
Educational attainment continues to play a role in these trends. In both years studied:
– Nearly half of women with less than a high school education or only a high school diploma/GED who had recently given birth were unmarried.
– For those with less than a high school education, there was a decline from 57% unmarried in this group in 2011 to about 49% in 2023.
– There was no significant change for high school graduates or GED holders during this period.
– The proportion of new mothers holding at least a bachelor’s degree increased from under nine percent in 2011 to more than eleven percent by last year.
State-level differences persist as well. Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia reported higher-than-average percentages of recent births among unmarried women compared to national figures. Meanwhile Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin all recorded lower percentages than average.
Further details on fertility statistics can be found on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Fertility webpage: https://www.census.gov/topics/health/fertility.html
