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Births to Unmarried Women
Births to Unmarried Women is the percent of all births in which the woman is not
married. In 1998, about three out of every ten Arkansas women giving birth were
unmarried. Unmarried motherhood is frequently associated with being young,
poor, having relatively little education, and receiving poor prenatal care.
As a consequence, such women tend to have a greater incidence of a broad range
of adverse reproductive outcomes.
Births to Unmarried Women is calculated simply as a percentage of all births.
In 1998, there were 12,910 such births out of a total of 36,831. Therefore,
the percent of Births to Unmarried Women = (12,910 / 36,831) X 100 = 35.1
percent. As a comparison, the United States percent of births to unmarried
was 32.8.
Births to unmarried women were highest in the Delta region of eastern Arkansas.
For the 1994-1998 period, births to unmarried women were highest in Phillips
County, with an average of 67.8 percent of all live births being born to
unmarried women. Grant County, on the other end of the spectrum, averaged
only 17.8 percent of live births to unmarried women.
There were significant differences by ADH Health Management Area in the
percent of births to unmarried women from 1994-1998. Area 9 had the highest
average at 56.3 percent, while Area 10 had the lowest with 24.0 percent.
Births to Unmarried Women differs significantly by race. About 73 percent of
Black Arkansans giving birth during 1994-1998 were unmarried. The percent was
much lower for White Arkansans, at 22.0 percent.
In Arkansas, the long-term trend has been toward an increase in births to
unmarried women. In 1983, 21.9 percent of all births in Arkansas were to
unmarried women. By 1998, this had increased to 35.1 percent.
Nationally, the percent of all births occurring to unmarried women rose from
32.4 in 1997, to 32.8 in 1998. The number of births to unmarried women
increased three percent in 1998, the highest increase ever reported nationally.
It should be noted that marital status is reported in reference to the
pregnancy. A woman is considered married if she is married at any time from
conception to birth.
The reader should be cautioned that the percent of births to unmarried women is
influenced by several factors. These include the fertility of both unmarried
and married women, as well as their relative distributions in the population.
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