The USA's banner year for babies in 2007 set a record of 4.31 million -- and was driven in large part by growing numbers of unmarried adult women giving birth, new government data show.
Childbearing by unmarried women reached "historic levels," the report says, to an estimated 1.7 million, or 40% of all births. There were increases in the birth rate and the proportion of births as well as an increase in the number. Teen mothers accounted for 23%. The report, based on preliminary data, was released Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics.
Since 2002, all measures of childbearing by unmarried women have been "climbing steeply," says Stephanie Ventura, a demographer who worked on the government report, which is based on birth certificates.
The report found 60% of women 20-24 who had babies in 2007 were unmarried, up from 51.6% in 2002. Among ages 25-29, 32.2% of births were to unmarried women, vs. 25% in 2002. For ages 15-19, almost 86% were unmarried, compared with 80% in '02.
The teen birth rate was up 1% in 2007, to 42.5 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19. The previous year it increased 3%, from 40.5 in 2005 to 41.9 in 2006. The overall U.S. fertility rate was the highest it has been since 1990. The rate for ages 15-44 rose by 1%, to 69.5 births per 1,000 women.
The numbers don't necessarily suggest a boom "that would have mirrored the 1950s," says Hans-Peter Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania's Population Studies Center.
Ventura says birth numbers are higher because the population is larger; in the 1950s, individual women had more children.
Also, the 2007 data were from before the current economic crisis, which might discourage some from having babies now. Demographers say 2009 data will be the first to reflect the effect of the economy on births.
"I would really expect to see a little bit of a decline," says Carl Haub, senior demographer at the non-profit Population Reference Bureau, based in Washington, D.C.
Evidence from the Depression and past recessions has shown that numbers of births fall in hard economic times.
But University of Chicago economist and sociologist Gary Becker says that may not hold true anymore, with greater numbers of women in the labor force. Women laid off from their jobs might see unemployment as the time to have a child, he says: "Births might go up during recession."
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