Nonmarital Childbearing in the 1980s: Assessing the Importance of Women 25 and Older

Nonmarital births to women in their late 20s and 30s have attracted increasing attention in recent years. Marital and birth history data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics confirm that births to unmarried women aged 25 and older accounted for a larger proportion of all nonmarital births in the 1980s than in the 1970s (36% vs. 22%). Most of these births were to women who had been previously married or who had other children: Births to never-married, first-time mothers aged 25 and older accounted for only 9% of all nonmarital births to older women in the 1980s. The majority of nonmarital births to older women in the 1980s-58%-involved women who began having children as teenagers.