Birthrate for Unwed Women Shows Decline

The national birthrate for unmarried women fell for the first time in nearly two decades last year and the teen birthrate posted a fourth consecutive annual decline, the government reported Friday.

Researchers attributed the declining teen birthrate to a leveling off of previous increases in sexual activity among young people and increasing use of condoms, motivated by a fear of AIDS.

The reduction in the overall rate of births among unmarried women is linked to the favorable trend among teenagers, they said. But it reflects other factors, including a change in data-collection procedures in California, that make the figures somewhat more difficult to interpret.

The most dramatic reduction was among black teens, whose birthrate fell 9% last year, to 95.5 births per 1,000 from 104.5 in 1994. That rate has fallen 17% since 1991.

The Clinton administration, which released the figures compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, hailed the developments as evidence that young Americans are beginning to take parental responsibilities more seriously.

“There are still far too many children being born outside of marriage, but we are now finally seeing that it is possible for us to move in the right direction,” President Clinton said in the prepared text of his Saturday radio address, which was released a day early to coincide with announcement of the data.

The birthrate for unmarried women age 15 to 44 decreased 4% in 1995, to 44.9 births per 1,000 women from 46.9 the previous year, according to the government’s preliminary data.

Similarly, births among unmarried mothers accounted for 32.0% of all births last year, down from 32.6% in 1994.

The teen birthrate continued on a gradual downward path, falling 3% to 56.9 births per 1,000 girls age 15 to 19, from 58.9 in 1994, the government reported. The rate has declined a total of 8% from its 1991 peak.

Researchers cautioned that it is too early to know if the decline in the overall rate will continue, but they expressed optimism.

“With the teen birthrate, it is clear we are looking at a trend now, but we still have a long way to go,” said Kristin Moore, executive director of Child Trend, a Washington-based research institute that analyzes data about children.

The United States still has the highest teen birthrate of any industrial nation. The country with the next highest rate, Britain, has 32 births per 1,000 teenage girls.

Nonetheless, the administration was quick to add the birth figures to a growing list of upbeat data about the direction the nation has taken during Clinton’s presidency. Other examples include declining rates of violent crime and poverty and improving employment and economic conditions.

“For far too long, too many Americans believed there was nothing we could do about our most vexing social problems. . . . They always seemed to be growing worse,” said Clinton, who is in Chautauqua, N.Y., preparing for Sunday night’s presidential debate with Republican opponent Bob Dole. “But now it’s different.”

White House spokesman Mike McCurry said the positive news can be attributed in part to efforts by the president. He cited an executive order requiring teen mothers to live at home and stay in school as a condition of receiving welfare, an “unprecedented crackdown” on delinquent child-support and consistent reminders that parents will be held accountable for their children.

“We believe that the tough message about parental responsibility . . . and putting a concentrated focus on this from the bully pulpit has helped generate the right climate for this improvement,” McCurry said.

Researchers, however, said it is far too early to credit the improvement to Clinton administration programs, suggesting that the declining birthrates reflect a more complex mix of factors.

The preliminary data was compiled from information contained in birth certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Because the figures were released much more quickly than in the past, analysts do not yet have access to supplementary information that might help explain the declines, such as studies of changes in sexual activity, abortion and contraceptive use.

Even so, the demographers who produced the report and independent researchers said they do not believe that abortion is a significant factor, noting that recent studies have shown a decrease in abortions since the early 1990s.

They suggested that the declines are more likely attributable to previously documented increases in use of condoms among teenagers, based in part on a growing understanding of the danger of AIDS.

“The fear of AIDS is quite strong--everybody knows right now there is no cure,” said Stephanie Ventura, a government demographer who helped prepare the report.

Part of the decline in the overall birthrate among unmarried women--perhaps as much as 2%--is linked to a change in the method used by the state of California to record birth data.

Unlike most other states, California does not ask new mothers if they are married when they are issued birth certificates, and federal officials believe that the state has consistently over-reported the number of children born to single Latino women. Last year, the state adopted a new procedure designed to determine more accurately the marital status of such women, which could have caused the decline in the unmarried birthrate to appear larger than it actually was.

Even if the California data is excluded, however, the birthrate among unmarried mothers still fell 2% nationwide, Ventura said.

The government has not yet made final state-by-state birthrate calculations, but the data released Friday includes some indications of trends at the state level.

In California, for example, unmarried mothers accounted for 31.9% of all births last year, down from 35.7% in 1994. But demographers said the decline is probably exaggerated by the change in recording methodology involving Latino mothers.

Births among unmarried black women, who are not affected by the methodology change, accounted for 62.1% of all births to black women in the state. That represents a slight decline from 63.2% in 1994.

Meanwhile, the annual study by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that the AIDS death rate held steady last year for the first time in the history of the illness, although the number of Americans who died from the disease reached a record 42,506.

Preliminary age-adjusted homicide rates fell 15% in 1995, while the infant mortality rate reached a new low of 7.5%.

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Out-of-Wedlock Births

Fewer babies were born to unwed mothers last year, a decline attributed to a drop in the teenage birth rate:

% of births to unmarried women

1995: 32%

Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention