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.

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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.

In Orange County, some data shows that the birthrate among teens rose dramatically in the early ‘90s. Now--although there is no hard data--officials say the birthrate may be edging down.

“People weren’t surprised by the president’s announcement today,” said Larry Leaman, director of the Orange County Social Services Agency. “Our research people seem to think something’s been happening for about a year now, but it’s an intuitive reaction.”

But UC Irvine graduate student Mike Males, who has published studies on teenage pregnancy, said the slight drop in the national birthrate is not cause for rejoicing locally.

“They’re acting like ‘Oh, we’ve been out preaching to kids and handing out condoms, so the birthrate’s lower,’ and that’s not true,” Males said. “Birthrates go up and down for only poorly understood reasons.”

What is known is that economic factors are strong determinants of teen pregnancy, Males said.

“The dynamics driving birthrates are not government policies so much as social conditions,” he said. “And poor populations, which often are immigrant populations, have higher birthrates. If you have a population with a lot of recent immigrants, you will have higher birthrates until they have assimilated.”

In Orange County, three-quarters of all births to teens are to Latinas, and the county has the fourth-highest birthrate in the state. California leads the nation in births to teens.

Several people who work with pregnant teens said the slight national dip in birthrates--and the possible one in Orange County--does not make the current situation less dire.

“What we know is that moms are getting younger,” said Mary Ann Xavier, executive director of the Florence Crittenton Services, a nonprofit agency serving troubled teenagers. “Births to teens in the 10-to-14 age range are up, and we know more Hispanic teens are having babies--I know that from what we’re seeing here.”

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The national 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 next highest country, 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.”

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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%.