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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 8, 1995                   TAG: 9511080073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

MORE COLLEGE GRADUATES BECOME SINGLE MOTHERS

More educated women, many in managerial jobs, are having babies out of wedlock as they get older and the stigma attached to such births erodes.

And fewer poor and black women - who form the prevailing image of single mothers - are having children without marriage, according to a Census Bureau report released Tuesday.

The really significant changes have occurred over the last decade, said census statistician Amara Bachu, author of the study.

In 1992, 6 percent of unmarried women with bachelor's degrees had had children, up from 2.7 percent 10 years earlier, Bachu said.

And the percentage of never-married women in managerial and professional jobs with children rose from 3.1 percent to 8.6 percent from 1982 to 1992, she said.

At the same time, unmarried mother rate for black women slipped from 48.8 percent in 1982 to 46.2 percent in 1992, while for white women overall it rose from 6.7 percent to 12.9 percent.

For teen-agers, the single mother rate slipped from 8.2 percent to 6.5 percent over that decade.

by CNB