Women More Likely To Have A Baby Than A Husband By Age 25
Posted by: Catherine Strawn
Filed in:
news
8:00AM, Friday April 17th 2009
Britain’s Office for National Statistics released its annual Social Trends snapshot yesterday (much like our U.S. Census Bureau data), and it shows that 25-year-old women are more likely to have had a child than they are to be married. In the 1970s, 80 percent of women were married by age 25. Now, just 25 percent are married by that age. As for births, 50 percent of 25-year-olds had given birth, and now it’s 30 percent. So, birth rates haven’t increased—they’ve decreased, but the number of women who are married by 25 has absolutely plummeted in the last 30-odd years.
Women aren’t the only ones who have changed their lifestyles. According to the same report, men are delaying marriage for longer, as well. In the past 10 years, the average age a guy gets married has risen from 29.3 to 31.8. And, it’s scary but true: 30 percent of men between 18 to 34 still lived at home, while for women, the number was just 18 percent. It’s good that it has become much more mainstream and accepted for women to give birth before getting married and to raise a child alone, because men don’t seem to be stepping up to the plate—or leaving their parent’s house. Go independent women! [Reuters, The Times]
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CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on April 17 2009 @ 08:04 am: [report]
It’s cheaper to not move out, now I have quite a bit in savings.
Cherubina
wrote on April 17 2009 @ 09:18 am: [report]
So how does this relate to the U.S.? Is this post assuming our statistics show a similar (if not exact) trend? I would tend to agree, though those statistics are probably a little less extreme than Britain’s.
Hey, times are tough—of course people are more likely now to delay a wedding. Though having a kid, which costs reportedly more than $27,000 a year, isn’t cheap, either ...
resullins
wrote on April 17 2009 @ 10:54 am: [report]
I don’t see this so much as an increase in single women having babies because they want to as I do an increase in young women and teenagers getting knocked up. That statistic has done something like quadruple in the last 30 years.
I wonder how much of this statistic is actually women that make the conscious decision to have a child on their own?
Perhaps the only thing that has become more “socially acceptable” is sexual promiscuity?
mikeyellenlee
wrote on April 17 2009 @ 12:30 pm: [report]
“30 percent of men between 18 to 34 still lived at home” WTF?
missduplicity
wrote on April 21 2009 @ 12:58 pm: [report]
I wonder how they’re counting women between those ages who *were* married, but aren’t now?
As a victim of a shot-gun wedding, I can sympathize with those women who are 25 with a baby and a failed forced marriage. Personally, I’d prefer to see that most of the women at 25 who do have babies, not be married, since a vast number of young marriages not only crap out, but crap out ugly. Trust me, I know.
roastchicken
wrote on April 22 2009 @ 02:52 pm: [report]
@mikeyellenlee: I totally agree! Unless there’s a serious reason for it, there’s no excuse for men to live with their parents.