Percent of Babies Born to Unmarried Mothers by State (2024)

FAQs

What state has the most unwed mothers? ›

Percentage of births to unmarried women in the U.S. 1980-2022. In 1980, some 18 percent of all women in the United States who gave birth were unmarried. As of 2022, the percentage of births to unmarried women has increased to 39.8 percent.

In the United States, for example, significant differences in out- of-wedlock births exist among major social groups. While the national average for the United States in 2014 is 40 percent, the proportions of births out of wedlock for whites are 29 percent; Hispanics, 53 percent; and blacks, 71 percent.

Overall incidence of unwed mothers - 0.53% (Table 1).

This statistic shows the 50 metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of female-headed family households in the United States in 2019. The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area, located on the Texas-Mexico border, was ranked first with 22.08 percent of households led by single mothers in 2019.

From 1995 to 2018, single mother prevalence remained highest among Black children, followed by Latino children, and then by White children. The mean prevalences in the 1995 to 2018 pooled sample are as follows: Black, 45.2 % Latino, 21.8 % and White, 13.6 percent (see Table 2).

Worldwide, 15% of children are born out of wedlock, but the figure varies from less than 1% in places like China to 69% in Iceland.

It goes further to state that the child has a right to parental care and protection, which includes equal responsibility of the mother and father to provide for the child, whether they are married to each other or not.

The majority of white, Hispanic and Asian children are living in two-parent households, while less than half of black children are living in this type of arrangement. Furthermore, at least half of Asian and white children are living with two parents both in their first marriage.

Among one-parent family groups, 41% of single fathers were never married and 38% were divorced, compared to 51% of single mothers who were never married and 29% who were divorced. About 44% of one-parent family groups had two or more of their own children under age 18 in the household.

Are there more white single mothers? ›

Four-in-ten solo mothers are white, compared with 58% of cohabiting moms and 61% of married moms. There are virtually no racial and ethnic differences in the profiles of solo and cohabiting fathers.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest percentage of single mothers worldwide, at 32%.

The states in the U.S. with the highest home birth rate in 2022 were Idaho, Montana, and Vermont. Idaho had the highest home birth rate, with 4.2 percent of all births occurring at home, while 3.9 percent of all births in Montana occurred at home.