"In Spain and Sweden, Germany and Greece, the total fertility rate-or the average number of children that a woman, based on current indicators, is expected to give birth to-was 1.4 or lower last year, according to the World Health Organization.

In no West European country did the rate reach 2.1-the marker that, demographers say, means an exact replenishment of the population. By contrast, the United States had a 2.0 rate, which demographers attribute to greater immigration."

(Source: Frank Bruni, "Persistent Drop in Fertility Reshapes Europe's Future," The New York Times, December 26, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/26/international/europe/26FERT.html?todaysheadlines) 

"Between 1940 and 1964, the marriage rate climbed, the average age of first marriage fell to a record low, and the fertility rate rose by an astounding 67 percent. About 25 million additional babies arrived in America during this time (using the fertility rate of 1940 as a base) and gave the nation another dramatic population boost. A "Boomlet," of sorts, returned in the 1980's and 1990's, as the U.S. total fertility rate rose again, this time by 18 percent. Another people "bonus," about 14 million strong, appeared. In 2000, 4,064,948 live births occurred in the United States, fairly close to the record 4,300,000 of 1957. In short, America's philoprogenitivity-even if diminished since 1964-remains stronger than that found among any of its former rivals.

...But all of the demographic news found within the 2000 census is not upbeat. Back in 1957, only 4.7 percent of U.S. births, or 202,000, were to unmarried mothers. In 2000, that number was a record 1,345,917, or 33 percent of all births. ...Indeed, the whole of the "Baby Boomlet" of the 1980's and 1990's derived from out-of-wedlock births. The marital fertility rate-161.8 (births per 1000 married women, ages 18-44) in 1957 and 121.8 in 1970-stood at only 93.7 in 1990 and 93.2 in 2000."

(Source: Allan C. Carlson, "The American Century," The Family in America, vol. 16, no. 4 [April 2002], 7-8.) 

Once a scandal, nonmarital cohabitation-"shacking up," in the vernacular-has grown remarkably common in modern America.   By 1995 nearly half (47%) of American women between the ages of 25 and 29 had ever lived in nonmarital cohabitation.  In contrast, less that one in ten (7%) of women born 20 years earlier had cohabited by the age of 25. But does the growing prevalence of the practice mean that it is now an acceptable alternative to marriage, as now appears to be the case in some Western European countries?  To answer this question, demographer R. Kelly Raley recently looked at national survey data, trying to determine the social meaning of pregnancy of cohabitational unions. 

Raley considered three possibilities.  First, if Americans now view cohabitation as an alternative form of marriage, then cohabitors would not be likely to marry in response to a pregnancy, but some single women might form a cohabitational union upon discovering that they are pregnant.   Second, if Americans view being in a cohabitational union as fundamentally the same as being single, then pregnant cohabitors' marriage rates should be about the same as those for pregnant non-cohabiting singles.  And third, if Americans view cohabitation as a "trial marriage," a testing period prior to the real thing, then marriage rates among pregnant cohabitors should run distinctively higher than among pregnant non-cohabiting singles, who should be relatively disinclined to form cohabiting unions. 

Raley's analysis suggests that "the American family is not (yet) following the path established in some European countries," with the latest evidence indicating that "cohabitation is not becoming an alternative to marriage" in the United States. True, singles are now "increasingly cohabiting in response to a pregnancy," and indeed are now "as likely to cohabit as to marry."  But this is "the only indication that cohabitation is becoming an alternative to marriage."  Other statistical trends tell a different story.  For instance, "remaining single is still the most common response" to pregnancy for non-cohabiting singles, with "the large majority of single pregnant women form[ing] no union [marital or cohabitational] before the birth of their child."

While "a decreasing proportion of pregnant cohabitors marry before the birth of their child," Raley doubts that this trend should be interpreted as an indication of cohabitation's growing acceptability as an alternative to wedlock.  For "cohabiting unions are becoming increasingly unstable" and "fertility among singles is growing faster than among cohabiting couples," two developments that would not be expected if cohabitation had acquired a marriage-like social status.  The declining marriage rates among pregnant cohabitors does, however, clearly undercut the view of cohabitation as a form of "trial marriage."  With cohabitation becoming "less and less a prelude to marriage"--and indeed less and less a prelude to anything stable-the verdict is clearly in.