Women who haven’t completed higher education are more likely to have a child out of wedlock, according to new research.
Analysis presented at the Population Association of America showed 74 per cent of mothers among parents aged 26 to 31 without degrees had at least one child when unmarried, while the figure was 87 per cent for those who hadn’t finished high school.
The study examined a US national survey of 9,000 young people born between 1981 and 1998, conducted annually from 1997 to 2011.
It found that single or cohabiting women had the most births, even among mothers who had graduated from high school or received some college tuition. Less-educated and poorer mothers also tended to marry less and have children younger.
“The college-educated young adults can see a good future, where they’re likely to find a good partner, pool two incomes, and they’re willing to wait to have kids till they can do that,” the study’s lead author and Johns Hopkins University sociologist, Andrew Chelin, told The Atlantic.
A similar trend has been developing in Australia, with the Bureau of Statistics last count in 2011 revealing 34 per cent of children were born out of wedlock compared to 24 per cent a decade earlier.
