The first line of the Feb. 17 story in the New York Times was stunning in its simplicity and its scope:
“It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal.”
The story cites Census Bureau figures by the Washington research group Child Trends showing that more than half of all births to women under 30 in this country are to women who are not married.
It’s a remarkable fact with broad social and economic implications.
Norms have changed over the years. Whether for better or worse is a debatable point, but the result is that more than half of the children of the next generation may grow up in a single-parent household.
The Times reported its story from Lorain, Ohio, which has a particularly high rate of illegitimacy. The report puts part of the blame on the decline in industrial jobs, which has made men less valuable economically.
“Women used to rely on men, but we don’t need to anymore,” Theresa Fragoso, 25, a single mother in Loraine told the Times. “We support ourselves. We support our kids.”
No doubt many single-mothers do, but the statics show that unmarried, single-parent households are far more likely to need government services. Additionally, the research shows that two-thirds of all couples that live together, but don’t marry, eventually split.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, says children in single-parent families “are approximately five times more likely to be poor than their peers from married-parent homes.”
Additionally, Heritage reports, “eighty percent of all long-term poverty occurs in single-parent homes.”
Coincidentally, the new milestone in illegitimacy comes just as the Associated Press Stylebook updated its online version to suggest that reporters drop the term “illegitimate child.”
Instead, AP writers are advised to use the phrases, “the child, whose mother was not married” or “whose parents were not married.”
The AP reasons that the term “illegitimate child” carries an unfair stigma. Fair enough. Why should the child be branded?
But there’s trouble ahead for many of those children, even if they are not stigmatized by an antiquated term.
“The shift is affecting children’s lives,” the Times reports. “Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems.”
We have already reached the tipping point in this country where half of all Americans pay no income tax. One half of the population is paying for the services used by the other half.
The coming bulge in the population of those born out-of-wedlock indicates that the “new normal” is going to carry a substantial social and economic price tag.