--- Gilbert Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Recently in the USA media the following alarming >statistics was presented: >Nearly 40% of US babies in 2006 were born outside of >marriage (to single mothers). In 1980, this statistic >was 18%. Some of the 40% single mothers will marry the >father of their child with whom they are in a live-in >relation. That is the good news about the 2006 >statistic. >
Even though the above percentages have been reported in the news media, they are highly misleading in terms of the actual percentages of children who ended up living with divorced and never-married single mothers according to the 2006 and 1980 censuses. These values for 2006 and 1980 were 18% and 10%, respectively. One major reason for this is the "good news" below. However, the "bad news" below arrived at by pure extrapolation and speculation is grossly inaccurate. This is evident from the fact that there is no significant difference in percentages between 2006 and 1980, as far as the subset of children living with divorced single mothers is concerned. They are 7.8% for 2006 and 7.5% for 1980. Please download the excel data files from the following U.S. Census link to verify the above percentages: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam.html Cheers, Santosh > >Some of the 40% single mothers will marry the father >of their child with whom they are in a live-in >relation. That is the good news about the 2006 >statistic. > >The bad news: Given that half of marriages end in >divorce, the 60% of the babies born to married >couples will likely grow up with only one of their >biological parent. >
