Out-of-wedlock births rise in county

BY TERRY FLORES tflores@kenoshanews.com  



    A growing number of Kenosha County women are having babies out of wedlock, according to state figures released this week.

    Last year, 863 children were born to unmarried mothers, or 39 percent of all births in the county, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services. That’s a 6 percent increase over 2005.

    More unmarried black and Hispanic women gave birth to children last year, compared with white women:

    While births to unmarried white mothers comprised about 22 percent of the total babies born, they made up only 30 percent of all white births.

    Births to unwed black mothers comprised 79 percent of the total number of black infants born last year.

    Births to unmarried Hispanic mothers made up nearly 56 percent of the total number of Hispanic infants.

    Since 2002, the percentage of births to unmarried mothers has increased, though it has grown more for minority women. Births to unwed minority women has grown by 7 percent, while it has dropped by 6 percent among whites.

    One of the reasons young black women are having children out of wedlock is because of commitment, or lack thereof, in relationships, said Dominique Pritchett, a Carthage College student pursuing a master’s degree in social work who has also led abstinencebased programs.

    “The people I talk with have said they don’t need their partner, and it’s because it takes a high level of commitment and being young. We really don’t think of the importance of a two-parent household and the family systems and how important they are,” she said.

    Pritchett noted that the attitude has prevailed across generations.

    “As black women, some of us have been raised by single mothers, and it has gone on for generations — my mother, her mother.”

    Pritchett said education factors heavily into the equation of unmarried, young black mothers. One of the things she has stressed in her sessions is the importance of education and the opportunities women have beyond being parents at such a young age.

    “Why are there so many single African-American mothers and women? It’s because it’s been in our families with welfare, and we have to break the cycle. That’s why I’m here (in school). I’m in the process of breaking all that,” she said.

    The largest percentage of births to unmarried mothers were among women ages 20 to 29, at 64.3 percent of all such births in Kenosha County. Within the demographic group, a number of them have had some college education.

    But among college-age women and those who have graduated, the idea of not being married while having children is also not unheard of. Some are products of a single-parent household, while others are from traditional families.

    “That trend is continuing — that college-educated women and women over 25 are waiting longer to have children, and more of them are having them out of wedlock,” said Gary Brown, executive director of Kenosha Area Family and Aging Services Inc.

    “I think they are saying, ‘I don’t have to marry this guy with his nasty habits, because I can afford to have this child myself.’ And with education, they can earn more money than if they didn’t have an education, to support themselves and support a child.”

    George Wang, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Parkside’s sociology department who teaches a marriage and family course, said perceptions about marriage and relationships have changed over the decades.

    “People don’t treat marriage and family as a sacred thing anymore. If they can partner and live together and have a baby then they do. Co-habitation is no longer seen as a taboo,” he said. “It’s more tolerated by society.”

    “Lots of women are going to college and universities, for instance, and they want to get their degree and they do. As a result they postponed getting married. But they still don’t want to miss their best time to have a kid, so you might see this number growing.”