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Knot Yet: putting the baby carriage before marriage

March 22nd, 2013

by Barbara Ray

One in two mothers in America is now having a baby then marrying later, if at all.

A profound shift is happening in America. Somewhere around 2000, the country quietly reached a tipping point: women, in a trend driven largely by “middle-American” women, collectively began putting the baby carriage before marriage.

In fact, for women on the whole, the age of first birth is now 25.7 while the age at first marriage is 26.5.

Let that sink in a moment.

And here’s another startling fact: one in two mothers in America is now having a baby first and marrying later, if at all.

It bears repeating that it is women in Middle America who are driving this trend — that is, women who do not have a four-year college degree but who might have some college under their belt and have a high school degree. College graduates are doing things the old-fashioned way: getting married and then having their babies.

What putting “baby before marriage” means for young adults, and the country as a whole, is the focus of the National Marriage Project’s new study, Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America. The report is the work of Kay Hymowitz, Brad Wilcox, and other scholars at the National Marriage Project, Relate Institute, and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

As Kay Hymowitz has said in the past, the most significant shift in American relationship habits is “not the widespread rejection of marriage; it’s not even the record number of thirty-something brides and grooms. It’s the abandonment of the idea that marriage has anything to do with children.” Her March 15 essay in the Wall Street Journal, co-authored with Brad Wilcox and Kelleen Kaye, expands on this point.

But back to the “great crossover,” as we call this moment when the age at first birth dipped below the age at first marriage in 2000: how did it happen, and why?

Keep reading.

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