Imagine that all women in the United States, upon becoming sexually active, were automatically fitted with an intrauterine device or other form of long-acting birth control. This scenario sounds creepy, with its undertones of Big Brother and eugenics; framed this way, it would be neither a realistic nor a desirable development. <\/p>\n
But this thought experiment, provoked by a new book by Brookings Institution scholar Isabel Sawhill, illuminates two important societal and technological realities. <\/p>\n
First, as Sawhill describes in Generation Unbound: Drifting into Sex and Parenthood Without Marriage, single parenthood is becoming the unhealthy new normal. Once, single parenthood was the consequence of divorce or the province of the poorest and least educated. <\/p>\n
Now, divorce rates are edging down. The prevalence of single parenting is largely a function of the never-married. The average woman today has her first baby before she is married. Meanwhile, single parenthood is invading the ranks of the middle class, often involving children with multiple partners. <\/p>\n
The stereotypical single mother used to be a high school dropout. No more. In 2010, Sawhill notes, 58percent of first births to those with high school diplomas or some college were out of wedlock. (The comparable figure for those with a college degree was just 12percent.) <\/p>\n
The paradox of the growing rate of single parenthood is that teenage pregnancy and birth rates have plummeted since the 1990s. But 20-somethings are the new teens: Unwanted pregnancies soared in this cohort during that same period. Among single women under 30, about 70percent of pregnancies are unplanned; just under half of these pregnancies are carried to term. <\/p>\n
The resulting children are the product of unstable relationships. In one study of 5,000 newborns in large and midsize U.S. cities, half the parents were living together at the time of birth; another third were dating. But by the time the children were age 5, only one-third of those couples were still together compared with 80percent of their married counterparts. <\/p>\n
More disturbing, many of those single mothers went on to have additional children with other partners, introducing new layers of instability into their childrens already complicated lives. <\/p>\n
Certainly, single parents can be dedicated and capable caregivers. Yet the broader trend toward single parenthood is undeniably bad for the children involved. If marriage rates returned to their level in 1970, according to Sawhills calculations, the rate of child poverty would be about 20percent lower. <\/p>\n
Still, there is no reversing the inexorable trend against marriage. This acceptance reflects a shift for Sawhill, who just a couple of years ago was asserting that Dan Quayle was right when he criticized television character Murphy Brown for choosing unwed motherhood. Marriage, Sawhill argued then, should be celebrated as the best environment for raising children. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The rest is here:<\/p>\n
Marcus: Long-acting birth control could help stabilize the single parenthood trend<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine that all women in the United States, upon becoming sexually active, were automatically fitted with an intrauterine device or other form of long-acting birth control. This scenario sounds creepy, with its undertones of Big Brother and eugenics; framed this way, it would be neither a realistic nor a desirable development. But this thought experiment, provoked by a new book by Brookings Institution scholar Isabel Sawhill, illuminates two important societal and technological realities Continue reading