March 2014 –The 2012 U.S. fertility rate (number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44) remained at an all time low for the second year in a row, and even dropped a few tenths of a percentage point. In each of the past five years the fertility rate has dropped, from 69.3 in 2007 to 63 in 2012. The latter was also the second consecutive year that over 40% of babies were born to unmarried women.
According to the National Center for Health statistics, about 18.1% of single women choose to move in with a boyfriend after discovering pregnancy. Only about 5.3% of couples choose marriage in the same circumstance.
However, as Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America pointed out, few of those relationships outside marriage survive, and the resulting parental breakups are detrimental to the children involved.
