Treands in illegitimacy among five english-speaking populations: 1940–1980

Abstract

This study considers the age pattern of illegitimate fertility in the white and nonwhite populations of the US with specific references to other English-speaking populations. The time period is approximately 1940-1980; the comparative populations are those of Canada England Wales and Australia. It is established via both visual inspection of rates and analysis-of-variance procedures that 1) trends in illegitimacy rates have been extremely similar over time among both US whites and nonwhites as well as elsewhere in the developed English-speaking world; 2) these trends occur in a period-specific pattern; and 3) within the various populations the age pattern of illegitimacy rates is fairly constant. Differences among populations in rates of illegitimacy inhere in both the overall level of these rates and the shape of the age-specific curves. Between 1980 and 1983 illegitimacy rates for US whites for all ages were on the increase continuing a trend that teenage illegitimacy aside began in the late 1970s. Very large absolute changes in rates of illegitimacy over time have occurred among older Australians and US nonwhites aged 20 and above. Relative levels of illegitimacy at ages under 25 are highest in the US and lowest in Australia and England and Wales with Canada in the middle; this pattern is reversed with reference to relative levels at ages 30 and above. Illegitimacy rates for Australian women increased during the same period of rapid marital fertility decline. The recent stable or increasing illegitimacy rates to women aged 25-34 in Canada England Wales and the US (whites) during a period of very low marital fertility also suggest that childbearing by these older unmarried women is not the result of ignorance or unavailability of birth control.