Births Outside Marriage in the US: Numbers and Changing Views

How many US births are outside marriage?

In 2024, 1,433,976 babies were born to unmarried women, which is 39.5% of all US births ^[1]. The birth rate for unmarried women was 35.5 births per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15 to 44 ^[1]. These numbers come from the CDC's annual report Births: Final Data for 2024, and the CDC page that summarizes them was last reviewed on June 10, 2026 ^[1].

Federal statisticians call these "nonmarital" births. The category rests on the mother's marital status as recorded at the time of birth, so it says nothing about whether the parents live together, whether they later marry, or whether the father is involved ^[5][6]. A child counted here may be raised by two cohabiting parents, by one parent, or in a larger household.

The share and the rate measure different things. The share is a percentage of all births, so it can stay level even while fewer unmarried women have babies, if births to married women fall at the same pace. The rate compares births with the number of unmarried women of childbearing age. Between its 2007-2008 peak and 2013, for example, the rate fell by 14% while the share edged only from 41.0% (2009) to 40.6% ^[5].

Provisional CDC data show 3,606,400 births in the United States in 2025, 1% fewer than in 2024 ^[11]. The release consulted for this article does not break the 2025 total down by marital status, so 2024 remains the latest verified figure for nonmarital births.

Births to unmarried women and public opinion (CDC, Census, Gallup)

Measure	Figure	Year	Source
Births to unmarried women	1,433,976	2024	CDC/NCHS, Births: Final Data for 2024
Share of all US births	39.5%	2024	CDC/NCHS
Birth rate per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15-44	35.5	2024	CDC/NCHS
Highest share on record in the sources consulted	41.0%	2009	NCHS Data Brief 162
Share in Mississippi / Louisiana	53.9% / 54.9%	2024	CDC state profiles
Gallup: baby outside marriage morally acceptable	58% (67% in 2025; 70% in 2022-2023)	May 2026	Gallup Values and Beliefs

How has the share changed over time?

The share of births to unmarried women rose from under 4% in 1950 to a peak of 41.0% in 2009, and it has eased since. In 1950 it stood at 3.9% ^[10]. By 1970 there were 398,700 such births, at a rate of 26.4 per 1,000 unmarried women ^[10]. The share reached 33.0% in 1999 and 33.8% in 2002, when the count was about 1.4 million and the rate 43.6 ^[10].

The climb continued into the 2000s. The count of births to unmarried women peaked at 1,726,566 in 2008, and the rate peaked at 51.8 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 2007 and 2008 ^[5]. The share itself topped out at 41.0% in 2009 and held at 40.7% in 2011 and 2012 before slipping to 40.6% in 2013 ^[5]. By then the number of births had fallen 7% from the 2008 high to 1,605,643 ^[5].

Since then the decline has continued, mostly in the rate. At 35.5 per 1,000 in 2024, the rate is about 31% below its 2007-2008 peak (a calculation from the two published figures), and the 2024 share of 39.5% sits about 1.5 points under the 2009 high ^[1][5]. The pattern is therefore not a collapse of nonmarital childbearing but a plateau followed by a gentle retreat, visible mostly in the rate rather than in the share.

Other federal sources measure the question differently and give lower levels. The Census Bureau's American Community Survey found that 30.9% of women aged 15 to 50 who had given birth in the previous year were unmarried in 2023, down from 35.7% in 2011 ^[4]. That series comes from a household survey rather than from birth certificates, so its level differs from the CDC's, but the two point in the same direction. Readers comparing numbers should check which source and which definition each figure uses.

Who are unmarried parents today?

Most unmarried parents are now cohabiting, not raising children alone. A Bowling Green State University analysis shows how the mix changed for mothers under 40, drawing on the National Survey of Family Growth for 2014-18 and on an earlier national household survey for 1980-84. In 1980-84, cohabiting mothers accounted for 6% of all births and single mothers for 15%. By 2014-18 the figures were 26% and 16%, which works out to roughly 62% of nonmarital births to cohabiting couples ^[6]. The single-mother share stayed in a narrow band of 15% to 18% across four decades, so cohabitation explains most of the growth ^[6].

The CDC's own analysis points the same way. It reported that the share of nonmarital births occurring in cohabiting unions rose from 41% in 2002 to 58% in 2006-2010 ^[5]. This is why a headline figure of about four in ten births can overstate the number of children born to a parent with no partner at home. Our page on cohabitation statistics in the United States covers the rise of unmarried partnership in more detail.

Age profiles have shifted as well. The CDC's 2014 data brief showed that in 2012 the rate was highest for women aged 25 to 29, at 67 per 1,000 unmarried women, followed by ages 20 to 24 at 65 ^[5]. Rates for teenagers had fallen sharply: 14 for ages 15 to 17 (down 30% since 2007) and 46 for ages 18 to 19 (down 26%) ^[5]. Rates rose for women in their late thirties and early forties, to 31 and 9 respectively ^[5]. These figures are from 2012 and describe the direction of change rather than today's exact levels.

Rates also differed by race and Hispanic origin in 2012: 73 per 1,000 for Hispanic women, 63 for Black women, 32 for non-Hispanic white women and 23 for Asian or Pacific Islander women ^[5]. Hispanic women recorded the steepest fall since 2007, at 28% ^[5]. Education and income matter too. The Census Bureau notes that women with a bachelor's degree or higher are more likely to be married when they give birth, and that across states the unmarried share is strongly correlated with the poverty rate, though it cautions that these links may reflect geography rather than cause ^[4].

Where is the share highest and lowest?

Births outside marriage are most common in the South and least common in parts of the Midwest, Northeast and Mountain West. In 2024 the CDC's state profiles put the figure at 53.9% of live births in Mississippi and 54.9% in Louisiana, well above the national 39.5% ^[8][9]. Those state pages treat 2024 as the default data year, which is the basis for dating the figures ^[8][9].

The Census Bureau's 2023 one-year American Community Survey sorts states against the national survey figure of 30.9%. Higher: Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. Lower: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Washington and Virginia ^[4]. Exact state percentages appear only in a chart in that report, so they are not repeated here.

Local contrasts are larger still. In five-year estimates for 2019-2023, the Brunswick-St. Simons area of Georgia had the highest share among metropolitan areas, at 70.7%, and Pocatello, Idaho, the lowest, at 6.2% ^[4]. The report notes that several of the low-share areas contain large public universities and that women with a bachelor's degree are more likely to be married ^[4].

The state map is not a map of belief. Poverty, education, age at first marriage and local labor markets all move together with the unmarried share, and the sources consulted do not isolate religion or attitudes as the cause. Our article on what Americans think about sex outside marriage looks at opinion separately from demography.

How do Americans judge having a baby outside marriage?

Gallup's 2026 Values and Beliefs poll found that 58% of Americans consider having a baby outside marriage morally acceptable, down from 67% in 2025 ^[2][3]. The drop of nine points is the sharpest single-year move in the series, which began in 2002 at 45%. Acceptance rose to 51% in 2003, 54% in 2005, 60% in 2013, 66% in 2020 and a peak of 70% in 2022 and 2023, then eased to 68% in 2024 and 67% in 2025 ^[2][12].

Party divides the 2026 result. Gallup reports 44% acceptance among Republicans, 56% among independents and 76% among Democrats, and says independents' acceptance fell 13 points in one year ^[3]. The poll surveyed 1,001 adults by telephone from May 1 to 17, 2026, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four points ^[3]. A nine-point change in the full sample is larger than that margin, but subgroup figures carry wider margins than the total.

The same poll found 65% calling sex between an unmarried man and woman morally acceptable, with 31% calling it morally wrong and 4% expressing no opinion ^[3]. That compares with 68% in 2025 and a high of 76% in 2022 ^[2][12]. Gallup observed that five behaviors, including having a baby outside marriage, birth control and gambling, each dropped six to nine points since 2025, and that earlier gains had "largely plateaued or pulled back" in recent years ^[3]. Acceptance on most of the items remains higher than it was 25 years ago ^[3].

One year does not make a trend. The sources consulted give no explanation for the 2026 fall, and a single reading can reflect sampling noise, question context or a real turn in opinion. The 2027 poll will show whether the decline continues. For now, the verifiable statement is narrower: a majority still calls the practice acceptable, but 58% is the lowest reading since 2014, when it was also 58%.

What happened to the old stigma of illegitimacy?

The stigma was once written into law, and courts removed most of it between the late 1960s and the 1980s. Under the English common law that the American colonies inherited, a child born to unmarried parents was legally a filius nullius, a child of no one, with no right to inherit from either parent, and at common law a later marriage did not change that status ^[7]. A child born to a married woman, by contrast, was presumed legitimate ^[7].

The Supreme Court dismantled that scheme through the Equal Protection Clause. In Levy v. Louisiana (1968), it held that a state could not bar nonmarital children from recovering damages for their mother's wrongful death while allowing other children to do so ^[7]. In Trimble v. Gordon (1977), it struck down an Illinois rule that stopped nonmarital children from inheriting from a father who had died without a will ^[7]. In Caban v. Mohammed (1979), it invalidated a New York law letting only an unwed mother consent to adoption, as a form of sex discrimination against fathers ^[7].

Today most states treat children born into marriage-like unions as legitimate, and the presumption that a married woman's child is her husband's remains strong ^[7]. Vocabulary has followed the law. Government statistics now speak of "nonmarital" births, the term used in the CDC data brief and in the congressional Green Book appendix cited here ^[5][10], while "illegitimate" survives mainly in historical and legal discussions.

The legal history differs from that of the statutes on adult sexual conduct. Courts overturned the disabilities placed on children on equal-protection grounds, because the child had done nothing, whereas fornication laws have been undermined by privacy and liberty reasoning that protects adults. The states that still list those offenses are described in our overview of fornication laws on the books. Social judgments about unmarried parents, as the Gallup series shows, moved on their own track and are still shifting.

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of US births are to unmarried mothers?

About 39.5% in 2024, or 1,433,976 births, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. The share peaked at 41.0% in 2009 and has eased since. The Census Bureau's survey-based measure, 30.9% in 2023, is lower because it is built from a household survey rather than birth records.

Has the share of births outside marriage gone down?

Yes, slightly. The share fell from 41.0% in 2009 to 39.5% in 2024, while the birth rate for unmarried women dropped from 51.8 per 1,000 in 2007-2008 to 35.5 in 2024. The rate has therefore fallen faster than the share.

Are most unmarried parents living together?

Yes, by most estimates. A Bowling Green State University analysis of federal survey data found that about 62% of nonmarital births to mothers under 40 in 2014-2018 were to cohabiting couples. The CDC reported 58% for 2006-2010, up from 41% in 2002.

Which states have the highest share of births outside marriage?

Southern states lead. The CDC reported 54.9% in Louisiana and 53.9% in Mississippi for 2024, the two states checked for this article, and the Census Bureau lists Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia above the national survey share in 2023. Utah, Idaho and several Midwestern and Northeastern states fall below it.

What did out of wedlock mean legally?

It meant a child's parents were not married at the child's birth, which under old common law made the child a filius nullius with no inheritance rights from the parents. Supreme Court rulings such as Levy v. Louisiana (1968) and Trimble v. Gordon (1977) struck down laws that treated these children worse than others. Government statistics now say nonmarital.

What did Gallup find in 2026 about having a baby outside marriage?

Fifty-eight percent called it morally acceptable, down from 67% in 2025. Acceptance was 44% among Republicans, 56% among independents and 76% among Democrats. Gallup polled 1,001 adults from May 1 to 17, 2026, with a margin of error of plus or minus four points.

Is having a baby outside marriage illegal anywhere in the US?

No. Having a child outside marriage is not itself an offense. A few state codes still list fornication or unmarried cohabitation offenses, but these are considered unenforceable against consenting adults in private after Lawrence v. Texas (2003).