The percentage of women who gave birth while unmarried has declined over the past decade, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The report, titled “Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth: 2023,” shows that in 2023, 30.9% of women with a recent birth were unmarried, down from 35.7% in 2011.
In 2023, four million women between ages 15 and 50 gave birth within the year. Of these, about 1.2 million were unmarried, and roughly 450,000 lived with an unmarried partner.
The findings are based on data from the American Community Survey (ACS). The report compares figures from 2023 to those from an earlier analysis using ACS estimates for 2011.
Across all U.S. states and the District of Columbia, either the percentage of women with a recent birth who were unmarried decreased or the change was not statistically significant between 2011 and 2023.
Teen births to unmarried women also saw a decline. In 2023, 90.1% of mothers aged 15 to 19 were unmarried, but the number in this age group dropped by more than half—from over 216,000 in 2011 to about 82,500 in 2023.
Educational attainment remains linked to marital status at childbirth. In both years studied, nearly half of recent mothers without a high school diploma or with only a high school diploma or GED were unmarried. However, there was a decrease among those without a high school education: from 57% in 2011 to about 49% in 2023.
The share of new mothers holding a bachelor’s degree increased during this period as well—from about 9% in 2011 to over 11% in 2023.
Some states reported higher percentages of recent births to unmarried women than the national average—these include Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia. Meanwhile, states such as Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin had lower rates than the national average.
For further details on fertility statistics and trends tracked by the Census Bureau visit their Fertility webpage at https://www.census.gov/topics/health/fertility.html.
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