Unwed Fathers and Fragile Families

Nearly a third of all births in the United States today occur to parents who are not legally married. The proportions are even higher among poor and minority populations, 40% among Hispanics, and 70% among blacks (Ventura et al. 1995). Out-of-wedlock childbearing is occurring with increasing frequency in nearly all western industrialized countries. Indeed, the proportion of children born outside marriage is even higher in the Scandinavian countries than it is in the U.S. (McLanahan and Casper 1996). However, the U.S. is somewhat unique with respect to the involvement of unwed fathers in the lives of their children. Whereas in the western European countries, the vast majority of unmarried parents are living together when their child is born, in the U.S. only about 25% of unwed parents are cohabiting (Bumpass and Sweet 1989). At first glance, these figures would seem to suggest that American men who father children outside marriage are less attached to their children than European men. This impression is further reinforced by research which shows that a substantial proportion of never married fathers have virtually no contact with their children (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994).