According to a study conducted by a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, more college-educated women in their 30s are having infants outside of marriage.
According to The Wall Street Journal, study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday showed that 24.5 percent of women aged 32 to 38 had children outside of marriage, according to surveys conducted in 2017 and 2018.
In 1996, that percentage was at 4%. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, and the National Survey of Family Growth were employed in the study.
According to the report, 18 to 27% of women in their 30s would be single when they birth their first child.
According to the study, college-educated women who have a kid outside of marriage are more likely to be married by the time they have a second child, and more likely to marry the person with whom they had the first child.
Although the number of women having children outside of marriage has increased among college-educated women, those with less education are still more likely to do so.
Six out of ten women between the ages of 32 and 38 who just have a high school certificate had a child outside of marriage. Those without a high school education account for 86.5 percent of those in the same age bracket.
According to Andrew Cherlin, the sociologist who conducted the survey, “a generation ago, the percentage of college-educated women bearing children outside of marriage was negligible.” “It's no longer a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.”
He continued, "We might be seeing a shift toward a more European pattern of birthing and marriage, where young folks have a kid before marrying."