Today, 37% of all births are to unmarried mothers (Hamilton, Martin, & Ventura, 2006). This represents a doubling in nonmarital childbearing in the past 25 years. Reducing nonmarital childbearing and promoting marriage among unmarried parents have become major policy concerns because, although the increase in nonmarital births has occurred at all education levels and among all race/ethnic groups, the trends have disproportionately affected lower educated and minority women (Ellwood & Jencks, 2004), which is fueling the growing inequality in this country. A concern is that two very different trajectories have been created for children; one for children born to married parents that is largely advantageous and one for children born to unmarried mothers that is beset with multiple risks.
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Paper provided by Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. in its series Working Papers with number
899.