40% of U.S. births to unmarried women, and climbing

A few weeks ago, the U.S. government released a report about nonmarital childbearing.

In 2007, 40% of births in the United States were to unmarried women, up from 18% in 1980. Unmarried Hispanic women are the most fecund.

This is a worldwide trend. In Iceland, Sweden, and Norway, the majority of births are to unmarried women. Having an unmarried mother is the new normal in those countries, and is likely to become the new normal in the United States in a few more years.

Japan has proven resistant to this trend. Only 2% of Japanese births were to unmarried women. Other Asian countries were not mentioned.

I wonder if Christian people see the irony that non-Christian Japan has much better family values than the United States?

* * *

I predict huge dysgenic consequences as a result of this. When men and women stop pairing off, then it’s likely that the 80/20 rule will come into play. That is, 20% of men will be the fathers for 80% of the babies. However the alpha 20% differ genetically from the beta/omega 80%, those alpha genes will rapidly spread to nearly the entire population in only a few generations.

If the upper classes continue to keep to the traditional model in which women only give birth after they are married, the upper classes will become genetically distinct from the lower classes, even more so than they are today.

Comments

[Sheila Tone]

Iceland, Sweden, and Norway? That surprises me. Is there perhaps a subgroup within those countries that's doing a disproportionate share of the nonmarital breeding?

[Sheila Tone]

I see from WebMD (the first Google hit) that Iceland and Sweden had a 40 percent unmarried birth rate in 1980, as compared with 18 percent in the U.S. Perhaps unmarried births aren't the marker of dirtbaggery and loserdom over there that they are in the United States. Maybe those unmarried parents are still responsible and form stable family units, but are just less religious than in the U.S., and therefore find it less important to formalize their commitment with a marriage.

[nothing]

I'm going to prepare for the future by renting a copy of "Gattaca".

[JL]

It's an uninteresting statistic that more babies are born to unwed mothers. A lot more interesting is the percentage of those mothers who are not living with the father. In many parts of Europe, it is no longer the norm to get married before having children. It is however still the norm that children live with both their mother and father.

[Gil]

Regression to the mean? That is to say in fifty or so years all the countries in the world will have an 'average' (mediocre) standard of living (e.g. equivalent to today's Mexico or Brazil)? Is this what happens when people go from showing respect for intellectuals and technological progress to respect for physical prowess and brute strength?

[reiver]

I noticed you used the term "unmarried mother" and not "single mother". Do "unmarried mothers" include situations where the biological father lives with the mother and children, but where the mother and father are not legally married?

[Ugly American]

When the US changed the tax law to subsidize overweight SUVs, sales skyrocketed. All kinds of people who had no use for one bought one because they could deduct it on their taxes.

Likewise, when the government started subsidizing babies, freeloaders started having them, not because they love them but because they want free stuff from the government.

Witness the results of LBJ's 'War on Poverty'

[robert61]

I would warn against taking the marriage stat at face value when comparing cultures. Being officially unmarried yet living in all other respects as a married couple with children is fairly common among the 40-something parents at our kids' schools in Stockholm. The rising rate of unmarried births in Scandinavia is definitely a worrisome trend, but it also includes a large swathe of children like mine, living in nuclear families with middle-class values. Scandinavia is not the 'hood or the barrio.

[tmmm]

Halfsigma, you have to take account that many people nowdays especially in Scandinavian countries live together like they were married, but just are not officially married. I think lot of kids born to unmarried women fall in this category.

And in the end, what is point of getting married nowdays? With easy no-fault divorces, marriage doesn't have much meaning anymore. In North Europe don't even get an alimony if you divorce.

[OneSTDV]

While this won't have genetic effects (and thus can be more easily reversed), single parenthood could initiate downward trends in culture. If you look at the communities and countries with high rates of single parenthood, it seems this libertine attitude is commensurate with all sorts of other social pathologies (high drug use, low educational attainment, etc.). In my mind, the nuclear family provides the most efficient model for raising a child and it provides examples of the suitable gender roles that underpin society. OK don't get on me for that last statement. I don't think women should only be in the kitchen. I'm just saying men and women relate to each other in a specific manner (e.g. PUA community works on this principle) and in the larger context, generally fill certain niches and exhibit general behavioral trends. I admit though that these can be somewhat flexible (e.g. tomboys). That was very terse for such a complex subject, but I hope it was sufficient.

But remember, if you criticize single parents, you are equal to Dan Quayle.

[Just Sayin']

"If the upper classes continue to keep to the traditional model in which women only give birth after they are married, the upper classes will become genetically distinct from the lower classes, even more so than they are today."

The Morlocks and Eloi model?

[Russ]

There is only one real solution for this: The male birth control pill.

[anotheranon]

"However the alpha 20% differ genetically from the beta/omega 80%, those alpha genes will rapidly spread to nearly the entire population in only a few generations."

It wouldn't be so bad if the alphas in question were more like Bill Clinton or some high IQ CEO but chances are that most of them are like Desmond Hatchett or Clevon from Idiocracy. High IQ alphas are smart enough to take precautions and if that fails, convince the woman to get an abortion.

"I wonder if Christian people see the irony that non-Christian Japan has much better family values than the United States?"

It's not irony. The Japanese have always been considered to be "civilized pagans" (WWII notwithstanding) even by the snootiest Christians. And this is before we found out they had a high IQ. Honor/shame cultures aren't all that bad. We seem to lack both in the West, hence our predicament.

[Rob]

Although it won't be happy times for the Omegas and Betas, won't the alpha children be good for society? Perhaps there will be fewer omegas and betas in the future.

[HS: Nope, the bar will just be raised in each generation. And sexual dimorphism will increase.]

[miles]

Sigma,

If we ended child support and welfare for unmarried women, these "ho's" would not be dropping these babies.

These "ho" women will intentionally try and get knocked up by a man, the baby guarantees about one of his checks a month, free housing, free health care, food stamps, WIC payments..............whats not to like.
Pat Buchannan was right, we need to bring back orphanages and stop rewarding ho's for dropping babies. We need to stop awarding illegal women for having "anchor" babies by changing the law that doesn't automatically make a kid legal if his illegal mom births it here.

Single women dont DESERVE child support. They can be on birth control, they can insist on condoms, they can take day-after pills, they can get abortions.

[PA]

I don't think sexual dimorphism will increase. Instead, you'll have larger and more brutish-looking males and females with each generation.

[Yusuf]

"Scandinavia is not the 'hood or the barrio."

What's the muslims term for favela?

[Mark]

The situation is nowhere near as dire as the media and a quck glance at the statistics may make it appear. The bulk of the increase in births to unmarried women has been to white women who are cohabiting with their child's father. These women usually marry after the birth of their first or second child.

[KingM]

Stuff like this makes me wonder if civilization isn't in its bubble phase. Once the population is too large and dumb to support itself, there will be a crash.

When times are good, the grasshoppers spread and multiply. When the drought comes, the ants replace them.

[Wilberforce Simonson]

I don't know the origins of the 80/20 rule, but geneticists say that the humans alive today have more than twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors.

http://uanews.org/pdfs/9710.pdf

[Geoffrey Falk]

"I don't know the origins of the 80/20 rule...."

"The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., '80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.'" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_Principle )

[Wade Nichols]

We need to find a scapegoat to blame this alarming trend on, preferably a white guy. Where's that Roissy fellow??

[S]

"I wonder if Christian people see the irony that non-Christian Japan has much better family values than the United States?"

Lefties have repeated the refrain for 40 years, "We are NOT a Christian nation. We are NOT a Christian nation. We are NOT a Christian nation."

So I don't see why Christians WOULD see "the irony that non-Christian Japan has much better family values than the United States."
There isn't any irony to see.

[kurt9]

What the government report does not say is the breakdown between unmarried births where the father still lives with the mother or interacts with the kids (I will call this the European model) and true single mothers who have been knocked up by an alpha-stud and truly raises the kids on their own (I will call this the Hood model). Which model is more prevalent in the U.S. is vital for the efficacy of any public policy.

My guess is that the breakdown between the European and Hood model of unmarried births is along both social-economic and race lines in a very un-PC manner. If so, this breakdown will never be discussed in any government report. Likewise, any public policy implemented to deal with this issue is certain to be ineffectual.

[JohnM]

actually, the male birth control pill was shelved because of "lack of interest."

I think if we took all the money for child welfare programs and put it into making birth control pills to make them free, easily available, fool-proof, and idiot proof, we'd have a much healthier society in, say, 18 years.

Actually, if I were HS or Vdare, I'd forget about HBD because society simply won't accept it. I'd invest energy/writings into advocating for an easily available male birth control pills.

[Peter]

"We need to find a scapegoat to blame this alarming trend on, preferably a white guy. Where's that Roissy fellow??"

Out nailing some chick.

[Eugene]

Except that with a birthrate of 1.34, it won't be long before Japan runs out of people to practice those family values on. I predict that the population in Japan will continue to fall until, as Steve Sailer's "affordable family formation" theory stipulates, having 2.1 children is no longer ruinously expensive. In economic terms, contemporary Japanese society is not at all "family friendly."

[HS: Japan will benefit from lower population, because the country is overcrowded. Less people will mean a lower cost of living, and then the country will be more family-affordable, encouraging more children!]

[Brutus]

Sigma: More bad news on Sotomayor

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/columnists/louis/index.html

[HS: Why is this bad news? Will it mean she won't get nominated? No. This confirms my believe that she has a big racial chip on her shoulder, but so does Obama.]

[Russ]

Male birth control was shelved do to lack of interest? Link please?

[FWQ]

The inductivist looked at GSS wordsum score and fertility rates(for white women) and found things to be improving since the nineties.

IQ Group/Mean kids this decade/Change over the past decade
High IQ--(1.82) up .23
Medium IQ--(2.07) up .08
Low IQ--(2.00) down .17
http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

Don't know if I really take GSS seriously enough to make conclusions though.

[Brutus]

"HS: Why is this bad news? Will it mean she won't get nominated? No. This confirms my believe that she has a big racial chip on her shoulder, but so does Obama."

Yep, Obama is dangerous. With any luck a brilliant screenwriter will tell the real story of our affirmative action president.

Possible title of film:

Thank-you, Thank-you!

[That's my baby mama, she work at Popeye's]

There is only one real solution for this: The male birth control pill.

Posted by: Russ | June 10, 2009 at 07:48 AM

If there were a male pill, every man with any money or education would be taking it and the real trash guys would be fathering all the unmarried mothers' children.

[nothing]

Hooray for single, teenage motherhood! The unsung heroes of our country.

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/rta_bus_driver_stabbed_by_youn.html

[Hadgoux]

The question is, why are people living together before/outside of marriage? How do they decide when to make a commitment? Do the two families get together beforehand? Are they considered husband and wife by society? do they ever make a formal promise or swear/affirm to stay together?
Or is this a situation when girl gets pregnant, father moves in, promises to get married "sometime" then never does/flees the scene after a while or gets married after a few years. In any case there is not that much differance between the so called european and Hood model. those european men while in contact with child end up dating, shacking up, impregnating or marrying other women, while the mothers are paid by the state.

[Ken]

I wonder if Christian people see the irony that non-Christian Japan has much better family values than the United States?

I wouldn't put it this way, because I don't think it has anything to do with family values. It's about the legal system and the family registry law, which dates to the Meiji Era. Japan has serious legal repercussions to having children out of wedlock. They cannot be on their father's family registries and cannot inherit anything. Having children out of wedlock is completely socially unacceptable, not to mention financially impossible.

[passing visitor]

"I wonder if Christian people see the irony that non-Christian Japan has much better family values than the United States?"

I wonder what the blogger thinks constitutes better family values about Japan? Does he think Japanese women are prudes saving themselves for marriage, unlike decadent Americans?