From the 1940s through the mid-1970s, just under half of single pregnant women got married before their baby was born. By the early 1990s, that figure was down to 16 percent. Far fewer unmarried women are putting their babies up for adoption, even though studies show the outcome is better in the long term for both mother and child. Unwed moms are by and large not clueless teenagers who need more contraceptives or abstinence lectures to keep from having babies, but young adults making choices that seem sensible to them given society's devaluation of marriage. It's not that people don't like marriage.
Polls show an overwhelming number of young adults want to get married and disapprove of divorce.
The connection between marriage and babies is more tenuous. Although parents say their unwed young daughter's pregnancy would be unacceptable, they are quite tolerant if it were someone else's daughter in the same situation. And studies show young people today are very permissive about the idea of having a baby out of wedlock. Gallagher cites studies showing this ambivalence guarantees a higher rate of illegitimacy. After all, for unwed childbearing to spread, it is not necessary for girls actively to favor unwed childbearing.