Legitimacy (law) - Extramarital Births

Extramarital Births

The proportion of children born outside marriage is rising in all EU countries, the USA, and Australia. In Europe, besides the low levels of fertility rates and the delay of motherhood, another factor that now characterizes fertility is the growing percentage of live births outside marriage. In the EU, this phenomenon has been on the rise in recent years in almost every country and in seven countries, mostly in northern Europe, it already accounts for the majority of live births.

In 2009, 41% of children born in the United States were born to unmarried mothers (up from 5% a half-century ago). That includes 73% of non-Hispanic black children, 53% of Hispanic children and 29% of non-Hispanic white children. In April 2009, the National Center for Health Statistics announced that nearly 40 percent of American infants born in 2007 were borne by an unwed mother; that of 4.3 million children, 1.7 million were born to unmarried parents, a 25 percent increase from 2002. The percentage born extramaritally increased 21% during 2002–2007, reaching at 1,714,643 in 2007 (or nearly 4 in 10 U.S. births). Most births to teenagers in USA (86% in 2007) are nonmarital, 60% of births to women 20–24 and nearly one-third of births to women 25–29 were nonmarital in 2007. Teenagers accounted for just 23% of nonmarital births in 2007, down steeply from 50% in 1970.

In Europe, the average has risen steadily during the last decades. In 2011, 37.3% of all birth in the EU 27 countries were extramarital. National figures in Europe range from 8.1% in Greece and 15.2% in Cyprus to 59.7% in Estonia and 64.3% in Iceland. A majority of births were outside marriage in Iceland (64.3%), Estonia (59.7%), Slovenia (56.8%), Bulgaria (56%), Norway (55%), Sweden (54.2%), and France (55%). Other European countries with a high rate of extramarital births are Belgium (49%), Denmark (48.6%), UK (46.9%), Latvia (43.7%), Netherlands (43.3%), Hungary (42.2%), Czech Republic (41.8%), Finland (40.8%), Austria (40.4%), Luxembourg (34.7%), Slovakia (34.0%), Germany (33.5%).

Births outside marriage have also increased in traditionally Catholic countries such as Portugal (42.8%), Spain (34.5%), Ireland (33.8%), Malta (22.7%), Italy (21.4%) and Poland (21.2%).

The percentage of first-born children born outside wedlock is considerably higher (by roughly 10% for the EU), as it often occurs that a marriage takes place after the first baby has arrived.

Latin America has the highest rates of non-marital childbearing in the world (55–74% of all children in this region are born to un-married parents). In most countries in this region, children born outside of marriage are now the norm. Even during the early 1990s the phenomenon was very common: in 1993 the rate of children born out of wedlock was: in Mexico was 41.5%, in Chile - 43.6%, in Puerto Rico - 45.8%, in Costa Rica - 48.2%, in Argentina - 52.7%, in Belize - 58.1%, in El Salvador - 73%, in Panama - 80%.

In 2007 Paraguay - 70%, in Dominican Republic - 63%.

Out-of-wedlock births are less common in Asia: in 1993 the rate in Japan was 1.4%; Israel - 3.1%; China - 5.6%; Uzbekistan - 6.4%; Kazakhstan - 21%; Kyrgyzstan - 24%.