More men are fathers before they become husbands.
The National Center for Family & Marriage Research, which calls Bowling Green State University home, released an update on its findings about fatherhood and marriage just in time for Father’s Day.
People are waiting longer to marry, and more children are being born to parents who are unmarried. The result is more men are entering their first marriages already having fathered at least one child.
The family profile, written by Lisa Carlson, uses data from National Survey of Family Growth.
For men who married for the first time between 1990-1999, 19 percent had one or more children. For those who first married, 2000-2009, 25 percent had one or more children. That ticked up for the next cohort, men who first married from 2010-2017. For that group 27 percent had one or more children.
The rate for the most recent years found a difference in trends among ethnicity with Hispanic men in the most recent group slightly less likely than before, 37 percent to 36 percent to have children when they first marry.
The decline was more dramatic among Black men, dropping to 36 percent from 54 percent for the previous period. The rate for White men increased to 23 percent from 17 percent.
This “decoupling of marriage and childbearing” is seen regardless of educational attainment.
For men who have not graduated high school, 68 percent have one or more children when they first marry.
For men with a high school diploma, 39 percent have one or more children.
For men with some college, 25 percent have children when they first marry.
For those with at least a bachelor’s degree, 7 percent have children when they first marry.
