DATE: Sunday, September 21, 1997            TAG: 9709190008

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   51 lines

OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BIRTHS LESS IS MORE

Bad news is more likely to be front-page-headline news than good news. Welfare rolls were shortening before Washington reformed welfare, but journalists - which includes us - didn't much notice.

Crime rates generally have fallen across the land, but that commands less attention from mass-communications media than vicious crimes by preteens.

So who could be surprised that the gratifying drop in teen out-of-wedlock birth rates has not gotten lots of ink.

Continuing economic growth and shrinking unemployment partly explain the encouraging welfare, crime and out-of-wedlock trends. More improvement could be in store.

Complacency is inappropriate, and optimism should be guarded. But the downturn in out-of-wedlock birth rates among white teens and black teens is welcome.

Ben J. Wattenberg, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, is a knowledgeable observer of American demographic changes. He spotted the decrease in teen out-of-wedlock birth rates in data gathered by the National Center of Health Statistics.

Wattenberg emphasizes that the out-of-wedlock birth rate in the United States is still painfully high. ``In 1960, 5 percent of America's children were born illegitimately,'' writes Wattenberg. Now the ratio is a third (32 percent). Scary, straight-line projections have shown it could go to 50 percent.''

Out-of-wedlock birth rates are also high in other countries. The rates in New Zealand and Denmark are very high. But the socioeconomic consequences are not as disastrous in those nations because high percentages of the out-of-wedlock children live in two-parent households having adequate income.

Children growing up in poor, single-parent households - as millions of U.S. children do - are heavily disadvantaged. So it is heartening that between 1991 and 1996, white-teen out-of-wedlock birth rates fell 7 percent and black-teen out-of-wedlock birth rates fell 20 percent.

The rising income of African Americans was a positive influence. Welfare reform, which was talked about for years before its enactment, perhaps made a salutary contribution. Increased contraceptive use probably contributed. Access to legal abortion services doubtless was an element, but abortions are down in the United States, due in some degree to fewer pregnancies. Family-life - ``sex'' - education may have helped, as did the chorus urging abstinence. Could it be that the message, reinforced by millions of unhappy examples, that a teen out-of-wedlock birth can be catastrophic for mother and child finally is getting through?

Any upturn, however slight, in teen out-of-wedlock birth rates will make headlines. The drop that cheers Wattenberg has yet to do so. Unfortunately.

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