The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data showing a decline in the percentage of women giving birth while unmarried over the past decade. According to the report, “Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth: 2023,” the share of women with a recent birth who were unmarried dropped by 4.8 percentage points, from 35.7% (under 1.5 million) in 2011 to 30.9% (1.2 million) in 2023.
In 2023, four million women ages 15 to 50 gave birth in the previous year. Of those, about 1.2 million were unmarried, and among these, approximately 35.5% (around 450,000) lived with an unmarried partner.
The report uses data from the American Community Survey (ACS) for both years and compares trends across states and demographic groups.
From 2011 to 2023, every U.S. state and the District of Columbia saw either a decrease or no statistically significant change in the percentage of women with a recent birth who were unmarried.
Among teenagers ages 15 to 19 who gave birth in the last year, 90.1% were unmarried in 2023. However, this group saw its numbers fall by more than half—from about 216,000 in 2011 to roughly 82,500 in 2023.
Educational attainment also showed differences: In both years studied, nearly half of women with less than a high school education or only a high school diploma/GED who had recently given birth were unmarried; however, there was a decrease among those without a high school diploma from nearly six out of ten (57%) in 2011 to just under half (48.9%) in 2023.
The proportion of recent mothers holding at least a bachelor’s degree increased from about one out of twelve (8.8%) in 2011 to more than one out of nine (11.4%) in 2023.
Geographically, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia had higher-than-average percentages of births to unmarried women compared to national figures. In contrast, Colorado and several other states—including North Dakota and Utah—had lower-than-average rates.
For further details on fertility statistics and trends tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau’s ACS program over time and across regions visit their Fertility webpage at https://www.census.gov/topics/health/fertility.html.
