Until the 1960s, it was widely assumed that marriage was a universal or nearly universal institution for licensing parenthood. Marriage assigned paternity rights to fathers (and their families) and guaranteed social recognition and economic support to mothers and their offspring. According to Malinowski (1930), who first articulated ”the principle of legitimacy,” and to Davis (1939, 1949), who extended Malinowski’s theory into sociology, marriage provides the added benefit to children of connecting them to a wider network of adults who have a stake in their long-term development.
This functional explanation for the universality of marriage as a mechanism for legitimating parenthood became a source of intense debate in anthropology and sociology in the 1960s. Evidence accumulated from cross-cultural investigations showed considerable variation in marriage forms and differing levels of commitment to the norm of legitimacy (Bell and Vogel 1968; Blake 1961; Coser 1964; Goode 1961). More recently, historical evidence indicates that the institution of marriage was not firmly in place in parts of Western Europe until the end of the Middle Ages (Glendon 1989; Goody 1983).
The accumulation of contradictory data led Goode (1960, 1971) to modify Malinowski’s theory to take account of high rates of informal unions and nonmarital childbearing in many New World nations and among dispossessed cultural minorities. Goode (1971) argued that the norm of legitimacy was likely to be enforced only when fathers possessed wealth and property or when their potential economic investment in child rearing was high. Therefore, he predicted that when Agiving a name” to children offers few material, social, or cultural benefits, the norms upholding marriage will become attenuated.
So vast have been the changes in the perceived benefits of marriage since the 1960s in the United States and most Western nations that even Goode’s modification of Malinowski’s theory of legitimacy now seems to be in doubt (Cherlin 1992; Davis 1985). Indeed, the term ”illegitimacy” has fallen into disfavor precisely because it implies inferior status to children born out of wedlock. Both legal and feminist scholars have been critical of the notion that the presence of a father confers status on the child (Burns and Scott 1994; Mason et al. 1998). The nuclear unit (biological parents and their offspring)—once regarded as the cornerstone of our kinship system—remains the model family form, but it no longer represents the exclusive cultural ideal, as was the case in the mid-1960s. The incentives for marriage in the event of premarital pregnancy have declined, and the sanctions against remaining single have diminished (Cherlin 1999; McLanahan and Casper 1995). In the 1990s, considerable scholarly attention and public policy debate has been devoted to ways of restoring and reinvesting in the institution of marriage (Furstenberg 1996; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994; Popenoe et al. 1996).
TRENDS IN NONMARITAL CHILDBEARING
Premarital pregnancy has never been rare in the United States or in most Western European nations (Burns and Scott 1994; Goode 1961; Smith 1978; Vinovskis 1988). Apparently, the tolerance for pregnancy before marriage has varied over time and varies geographically at any given time. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, premarital pregnancy almost always led to hasty marriages rather than out-of-wedlock births—even for very young women (O’Connell and Moore 1981; Vincent 1961). In 1940, illegitimacy was uncommon in the United States, at least among whites. Nonmarital births were estimated at about 3.6 per 1,000 unmarried white women, while the comparable rate for nonwhites was 35.6. For all age groups, among whites and nonwhites alike, a spectacular rise occurred over the next five decades (Clague and Ventura 1968; Cutright 1972; McLanahan and Casper 1995).
In the 1960s and the 1970s, nonmarital child-bearing rates continued to increase for younger women, albeit at a slower pace, while for women in their late twenties and thirties rates temporarily declined. Then, in the late 1970, nonmarital child-bearing rates rose again for all age groups and among both whites and African Americans. This rise continued until the mid-1990s, when levels of nonmarital childbearing stabilized or even declined (Ventura et al. 1996). Since the early 1970s, rates of marriage and marital childbearing have fallen precipitously. Thus, the ratio of total births to single women has climbed continuously (Smith et al. 1996). Nearly a third of all births (32.4 percent) in 1996 occurred out of wedlock, more than seven times the proportion in 1955 (4.5 percent) and more than twice that in 1975 (14.3 percent). The declining connection between marriage and parenthood is evident among all age groups but is especially pronounced among women in their teens and early twenties. Three out of four births to teens and nearly half of all births to women ages twenty to twenty-four occurred out of wedlock. Virtually all younger blacks who had children in 1995 (more than 95 percent) were unmarried, while two-thirds of white teens and more than a third of white women twenty to twenty-four were single when they gave birth.
Nonmarital childbearing was initially defined as a problem among teenagers and black women (Furstenberg 1991). But these recent trends strongly suggest that disintegration of the norm of legitimacy has spread to all segments of the population. First the link between marriage and sexual initiation dissolved, and now the link between marriage and parenthood has become weak. Whether this trend is temporary or a more permanent feature of the Western family system is not known. But public opinion data suggest that a high proportion of the population finds single parenthood acceptable. A Roper study (”Virginia Slims American Women”s Opinion Poll” 1985) revealed that 49 percent of women agreed that ”There is no reason why single women should not have children and raise them if they want to.”
Citing similar attitudinal evidence from the National Survey of Families and Households in 1987-1988, Bumpass (1990) concludes that there has been an ”erosion of norms” proscribing nonmarital childbearing. He concludes that this behavior is not so much motivated by the desire to have children out of wedlock as it is by the reduced commitment to marriage and the limited sanctions forbidding nonmarital childbearing. Bumpass argues that much of the nonmarital childbearing is unplanned and ill timed.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF NONMARITAL CHILDBEARING
Although extensive research exists on the economic, social, and psychological sequelae of single parenthood for adults and children, relatively little of this research has distinguished between the consequences of marital disruption and nonmarriage (Furstenberg 1989; Furstenberg and Cherlin 1991; Garfinkel and McLanahan 1986; Maynard 1997). A substantial literature exists on the consequences of nonmarital childbearing, but it is almost entirely restricted to teenage childbearers (Chilman 1983; Hofferth and Hayes 1987; Institute of Medicine 1995; Miller and Moore 1990; Moore et al. 1986). It is difficult, then, to sort out the separate effects of premature parenthood, marital disruption, and out-of-wedlock childbearing on parents and their offspring.
Nonmarital childbearing most certainly places mothers and their children at risk of long-term economic disadvantage (Institute of Medicine 1995; Maynard 1997; McLanahan and Booth 1989). Out-of-wedlock childbearing increases the odds of going on welfare and of long-term welfare dependency (Duncan and Hoffman 1990). The link between nonmarital childbearing and poverty can probably be traced to two separate sources. The first is ”selective recruitment,” that is, women who bear children out of wedlock have poor economic prospects before they become pregnant, and their willingness to bear a child out of wedlock may reflect the bleak future prospects of many unmarried pregnant women, especially younger women (Furstenberg 1990; Geronimus 1987; Hayes 1987; Hogan and Kitagawa 1985; Maynard 1997). But is also likely that out-of-wedlock childbearing—par-ticularly when it occurs early in life—directly contributes to economic vulnerability because it reduces educational attainment and may limit a young woman’s prospects of entering a stable union (Furstenberg 1991; Hofferth and Hayes 1987; Hoffman et al. 1993; Trussell 1988).
If nonmarital childbearing increases the risk of lengthy periods of poverty for women and their children, it is also likely that it restricts the opportunities for intra- and intergenerational mobility of families formed as single-parent units. Growing up in poverty restricts access to health, high-quality schools, and community resources that may promote success in later life (Ellwood 1988; Wilson 1987). Apart from the risks associated with poverty, some studies have shown that growing up in a single-parent family may put children at greater risk because they receive less parental supervision and support (Amato and Booth 1997; Dornbush 1989; McLanahan and Booth 1989; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). As yet, however, researchers have not carefully distinguished between the separate sources of disadvantage that may be tied to nonmarital childbearing: economic disadvantage (which could restrict social opportunities or increase social isolation) and psychological disadvantage (which could foster poor parenting practices or limit family support).
Even though nonmarital childbearing may put children at risk of long-term disadvantage, it is also possible that over time the advantages conferred by marriage may be decreasing in those segments of the population that experience high rates of marital disruption (Bumpass 1990; Edin 1998; Furstenberg 1995). Moreover, the social and legal stigmata once associated with nonmarital child-bearing have all but disappeared in the United States and many other Western nations (Glendon 1989). Over time, then, the hazards associated with nonmarital childbearing (compared with ill-timed marital childbearing) for women and their children may have declined. Whatever the reasons for these trends, it appears that nonmarital child-bearing may have peaked by the mid-1990s. Whether the leveling off in rates of nonmarital childbear-ing signals a shift in family formation patterns or is merely a response to the robust economy of the 1990s remains to be seen.
NONMARITAL CHILDBEARING AND PUBLIC POLICY
Growing rates of nonmarital childbearing in the United States and many other Western nations suggest the possibility that the pattern of child-bearing before marriage or between marriages may be spreading upward into the middle class. In Scandinavia, where marriage has declined most dramatically, it is difficult to discern whether formal matrimony is being replaced by a de facto system of informal marriage (Hoem and Hoem 1988). If this were to happen, the impact on the kinship system or the circumstances of children might not be as dramatic as some have speculated. But if the institution of marriage is in serious decline, then we may be in the midst of a major transformation in the Western family.
The weakening of marriage has created confusion and dispute over parenting rights and responsibilities. A growing body of evidence indicates that most nonresidential biological fathers, especially those who never marry, typically become disengaged from their children (Arendell 1995; King and Heard 1999; Seltzer 1991; Teachman 1990). Most are unwilling or unable to pay regular child support, and relatively few have constant relationships with their children. Instead, the costs of child rearing have been largely assumed by mothers and their families, aided by public assistance. A minority of fathers do manage to fulfill economic and social obligations, and some argue that many others would do so if they had the means and social support for continuing a relationship with their children (Marsiglio 1998; Smollar and Ooms 1987).
The uncertain relationship between biological fathers and their children has created a demand for public policies to shore up the family system (Garfinkel et al. 1996; Popenoe 1996). Widespread disagreement exists over specific policies for addressing current problems. Advocates who accept the current reality of high levels of nonmarriage and marital instability propose more generous economic allowances and extensive social support to women and their children to offset the limited economic role of men in disadvantaged families (Ellwood 1988). Critics of this approach contend that such policies may further erode the marriage system (Vinovskis and Chase-Lansdale 1987). Yet few realistic measures have been advanced for strengthening the institution of marriage (Furstenberg and Cherline 1991).
Enforcement of child support has attracted broad public support. A series of legislative initiatives culminating in the Family Support Act of 1988 have increased the role of federal and state governments in collecting child support from absent parents (typically fathers) and standardizing levels of child support. There has been a steady but modest improvement in the collection of child support in the 1990s. It is much less clear whether the strengthening of child support has worked to the benefit of children (Furstenberg et al. 1992; Garfinkel et al. 1996). It is too early to tell whether these sweeping measures will succeed in strengthening the economic contributions of fathers who live apart from their children. And, if it does, will greater economic support by absent parents reinforce social and psychological bonds to their children (Furstenberg 1989; Garfinkel and McLanahan 1990)? The other great experiment of the 1990s was the Welfare Reform Act in 1996, which replaced the longstanding entitlements to public assistance with temporary provisional support. It is much too early to tell what, if any, the effects of this policy will be on marriage and fertility practices. Advocates of welfare reform claimed that it would reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing and help restore marriage (Murray 1984). But the link between welfare payments and marriage patterns has never been strong (Moffitt 1998). Still, it may be possible to devise a test of the consequences of the different policies given the large state variations in program implementation.
As for the future of marriage, few, if any, sociologists and demographers are predicting a return to the status quo or a restoration of the norm of legitimacy. Short of a strong ideological swing favoring marriage and condemning nonmarital sexual activity and childbearing, it is difficult to foresee a sharp reversal in present trends (Blankenhorn et al. 1990). Predicting the future, however, has never been a strong point of demographic and sociological research.
