Many new mothers remain unmarried in growing percentages

Bristol Palin, who was unmarried when she gave birth and who now preaches abstinence

Several years ago the Pew Forum reported a shocking statistic, and that is 41% of new mothers at that time in the United States were unmarried. Have those statistics improved?

So Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol and Levi Johnston were not aberrations when Palin ran on the ticket with John McCain, while her daughter clearly showed her pregnancy.  The couple were unmarried and later split up, just like many other young adults do when the woman is pregnant before marriage.

In the decade reported not just teenagers had babies without marriage, which is a big increase over the previous ten years.

The Pew Research Center in 2010 found a record number of unmarried women gave birth in the U.S.  and that nearly half of these new mothers were unmarried.  1.7 million babies were born that year, most of them to women under the age of 25.  59 percent were to unmarried women in that age group.

This is a growing trend apparently when compared with numbers from 20 years ago when only 28 percent of births were to unmarried women.

Unmarried mothers face a set of legal issues that include establishing paternity, setting a support agreement, custodial agreements, financial agreements, and other related issues.

Each state has its own laws regarding child support, and these vary a good deal across the country.

Americans are not entirely positive about the trend of unmarried mother because as the Pew Center has reported, "while Americans have softened slightly in their disapproval of unmarried parenthood, most continue to say it is bad for society."

The rates dramatically increased in subsequent years.  In 2013 statistics showed that 60% of the women who were having children in their 20's were unmarried.  At the same time Generation X is said to be different than the women in the generations before them, as they are, for the most part, neither in favor of or opposed to abortion even though many of them are on the lines of people protesting against abortion.

And while the marriage rate is falling, out-of-wedlock rates are increasing.  The potential result?  Increased poverty at a time when the gap between rich and the middle class continues to grow as well, pushing further down the ladder those without the resources to struggle up the ladder, which means those babies born to without a two-parent balance or those without the economic means to provide the education and long-term security for them.

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