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 study, titled “Women’s Living Arrangements at First Birth,” analyzes how women’s marital and cohabitation status at first birth changed over time, with a focus on differences by education level and race or ethnicity.
The findings indicate that fewer women had their first child while neither married nor living with a partner in 2020-2024 than in 1990-1994.
Education appears to play a significant role in these trends. Among women with at least a bachelor’s degree, the share who were married at the time of their first birth increased from 74.4% in 1990-1994 to 84.5% in 2020-2024. For this group, only 4.4% were neither married nor cohabiting when they became mothers for the first time during 2020-2024, down from 14.4% three decades earlier.
In contrast, among women without a bachelor’s degree, marriage at first birth declined from 58.6% to 40.6% over the same period. Cohabitation among these women rose from 19.2% to 34.8%.
There are also notable differences by race and ethnicity. In the early 1990s, Asian women were most likely to be married at their first birth (81.7%), followed by White (71.8%), Hispanic (61.2%), and Black (31.5%) mothers. By the early 2020s, the percentage of Hispanic mothers who were married at their first birth dropped to 43.9%. The proportion of marital first births did not change significantly for Asian, White, or Black mothers during this period.
Cohabitation rates also increased among some groups: for White mothers it rose from 14.5% to 20.2%, and for Hispanic mothers it grew from 20.4% to 34%.
Additional details about these patterns can be found through resources such as the Current Population Survey June Fertility Supplement File and America Counts.
For further information about trends in women’s living arrangements at childbirth, visit https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2023/demo/fertility/womens-living-arrangements-at-first-birth.html.
