A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that more women had their first child while living with an unmarried partner in the early 2020s compared to the early 1990s. The report, titled “Women’s Living Arrangements at First Birth,” examines how women’s living situations at the time of their first birth have changed over three decades, considering factors such as education level and race or ethnicity.
The study found that fewer women had their first child while neither married nor cohabiting in 2020-2024 than in 1990-1994.
Educational attainment was a significant factor. Among first-time mothers with at least a bachelor’s degree, the percentage who were married increased from 74.4% in 1990-1994 to 84.5% in 2020-2024. For this group, only 4.4% were neither married nor living with a partner during their first birth in the early 2020s, down from 14.4% three decades earlier.
For women without a bachelor’s degree, marriage rates declined for those having their first child: from 58.6% in the early ’90s to 40.6% by the early ’20s. Cohabitation among these women rose notably—from 19.2% to 34.8%.
Race and ethnicity also played a role in these trends. In the early ’90s, Asian women were most likely to be married when they had their first child (81.7%), followed by White (71.8%), Hispanic (61.2%), and Black (31.5%) mothers.
By the early ’20s, marriage rates among Hispanic first-time mothers dropped to 43.9%. The share of marital births did not change significantly for Asian, White, or Black mothers during this period.
Cohabitation increased across groups as well: it rose from 14.5% to 20.2% among White mothers and from 20.4% to 34% among Hispanic mothers between the two periods studied.
Further details about these findings are available through resources like the Current Population Survey’s June 2024 Fertility Supplement File and America Counts.
