I stumbled across this and was surprised. It made me think of the Parenting Trends thread...but I figured I should start another one since this is but one aspect of the bigger picture. Worth a read, though.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us...pagewanted=all
LORAIN, Ohio — It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.
73 percent of black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites. And educational differences are growing. About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less, according to Child Trends.
Stats:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf