
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 14, 1993                   TAG: 9307140115
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

UNWED MOMS MORE COMMON

More and more unmarried American women are bearing children, a trend that cuts across racial, social and economic divisions in American society, according to a census report.

Demographers said the survey results the Census Bureau released Tuesday suggest unwed mothers do not face the social stigmas they once did.

"Society is not frowning on them anymore," said Amara Bachu, the report's author. "Families have changed their attitudes" toward pregnant daughters, she said.

The numbers showed out-of-wedlock births are no longer confined primarily to uneducated women in poverty. In 1982, single mothers were only 5.5 percent of unmarried women who had attended at least a year of college. By last year the proportion of single mothers in that category had doubled to 11.3 percent, said the report.

In 1982, mothers accounted for 17.2 percent of the never-married women who had attained a high-school education. By 1992, that proportion had increased to 32.5 percent, said the study.

Overall, the proportion of mothers among never-married women increased from 15.1 percent in 1982 to 23.7 percent last year.

The proportion of mothers among never-married women with managerial or professional jobs increased from 3.1 percent in 1981 to 8.2 percent last year.

The report said the trend involved all significant racial groups in American society.

While the proportion of black women giving birth outside marriage increased from 49 percent in 1982 to 67 percent last year, the rate of out-of-wedlock births nearly doubled among white and Hispanic women over the same period.

The proportion of women who remain childless has also increased. In 1976, 10.2 percent of women ages 40 to 44 were childless. By last year, that proportion had increased to 15.7 percent.

The report also found:

The proportion of families with children where both spouses worked rose from 33 percent to 47 percent.

Traditional families, with only the husband employed, were only 24 percent of married couples last year, 43 percent in 1976.

by CNB