Twenty-six percent of all births in 1994 were born
out-of-wedlock.
In June 1994, there were 60.0 million women of childbearing age
(15 to 44). About 3.9 million of them reported having had a birth
in the preceding 12 months, resulting in a fertility rate of 65
births per 1,000 women, not different from the rate in 1990.
In both 1990 and 1994, 42 percent of women 15 to 44 years old
were childless. About 42 percent of women who had a birth between
July 1993 and June 1994 reported that birth as their first, up
slightly from the 39 percent reported for the year ending in June
1990.
The proportion of children born out-of-wedlock was 26 percent of
all births in 1994, not different from 1990. Of all births to
Black women in 1994, 66 percent were to unmarried women (women
either never married, widowed, or divorced at the survey date);
this is about 3 times as high as that reported by White women (19
percent), and about twice as high as that reported by Hispanic
women (28 percent).1
Of the 6.5 million Hispanic women 15 to 44 years old in 1994, 4.0
million said that they were of Mexican ancestry. The fertility
rate for Mexican-American women was 111 births per 1,000, a rate
almost twice as high as the non-Hispanic population (61 per
1,000). Women of Mexican ancestry averaged 1.6 children ever
born, about 0.5 children higher than non-Hispanic women.
Twenty percent of never-married women were
mothers.
About 38 percent of women 15 to 44 years old in 1994 had never
been married. Of these 22.7 million never-married women, 20
percent had given birth to at least one child by the time of the
survey. About 7 percent of never-married teenagers had borne a
child; while among women in their thirties, about 4 out of every
10 had borne a child out of wedlock. About 1 in 2 never-married
Black women had a baby, compared with 1 in 4 never-married
Hispanic women and 1 in 8 never-married White women.
Fertility of foreign-born women was higher than native-
born women.
In 1994, there were 6.2 million foreign-born women 15 to 44 years
old. The fertility rate for these women was 93 births per 1,000,
compared with 62 births per 1,000 native-born women 15 to 44
years old.
Overall, 15 percent of the births (580,000) in 1994 were to
foreign-born women, and the majority of these births (503,000)
were to women who were not citizens of the United States. Women
born in Mexico comprised 30 percent of all foreign-born women in
the childbearing ages but had 48 percent of the births to these
women. Among foreign-born women, those born in Mexico had the
highest fertility rate (147 births per 1,000), compared with 53
births per 1,000 for women born in Europe and 58 births per 1,000
for women born in Asia.2
Over one-half of women with a newborn were in the labor
force.
In June of 1994, 53 percent of women 15 to 44 years old who had a
child in the preceding 12 months were in the labor force, not
different from the rate in 1990.
Among mothers with newborn children, 70 percent of mothers who
had at least a bachelor's degree were in the labor force,
compared with 48 percent who had completed only high school and
34 percent with less than a high school diploma. It is likely
that highly educated women with prior career commitments and
higher earnings potential would suffer greater losses from work
force interruptions, such as having a child, thereby encouraging
a more rapid reentry into the labor force after a child's birth.
---------------
1 Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. These data
do not include the population of Puerto Rico.
2 Fertility rates for women from Europe and Asia were not
different from each other.
For Further Information
See: Current Population Reports, Series P20-482, Fertility of
American Women: June 1994, forthcoming.
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