The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University released an annual report outlining the fact that couples no longer need to be married to start a family. Some couples have no intentions of marrying at all and, in turn, one in three children in the United States are born out of wedlock.
According to the project “marriage is undergoing legal, social, and cultural changes, and many of these changes are shifting its meaning and purpose away from children and toward adults.”
“About a third of all children and more than two-thirds of African-American children are born out of wedlock.”
Since 1960, a 850 percent increase has taken place in number of cohabitating couples that live with children according to the Project.
“An estimated 40 percent of all children today are expected to spend some time in a cohabitating couple household during growth years. Roughly a million children each year experience parental divorce and its aftermath. As a consequence of these combined forces, 69 percent of all children are living with two married parents compared to 85 percent as early as 1970. Only 38 percent of black children who live with two married parents compared to 58 percent in 1970.”
Posted to the web by Angelina Wagner
