Over half of babies are born outside of marriage

Sky news is reporting this week that ‘more babies were born outside marriage or a civil partnership in England and Wales in 2021 than within.’

It is the first time that has happened since records began in 1845, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said. Just 48.7 per cent of newborns began life with a married couple.

As this report on the decline of traditional families back in September last year also stated, this number would be made up of single-parent households or some form of cohabiting or joint parenting arrangements. There is a difference across the age spectrum and mothers aged 30 and over were almost twice as likely to be married or in a civil partnership than those under 30.

As a comparison when I was born in the 1960s around 5% of babies were born outside of marriage.

Over that same time period, the number of mothers over the age of 40 continues to increase and the birth rate overall continues to decrease. The average age of mothers increased to 30.9 in 2021. 

This means that nearly half of British children now grow up outside the conventional two-parent household. Forty-four per cent of those born in 2000 will have spent some of their childhood up to age 17 outside a ‘nuclear’ family, compared with 21 per cent of people born in 1970.

It also shows that couples, but in particular mothers, are often waiting longer to have fewer children than previous generations and many of those children will not be born into a stable cohabiting relationship or marriage or go on to be part of one.

As Christians, we recognise the great job being done by single parents, often mothers. With those in our churches, we see the sacrifice and hard work they do to make a good and stable environment and to provide for their children. And again we give thanks for extended family networks supporting single parents. We need to think carefully about the challenges faced by single parents, and for parents ‘sharing’ custody and care of their children, and whether our church structures care for their practical and social needs.

We also recognise that giving a child a loving, secure upbringing, requires much more than a ring and a public ceremony and that in some cases the parental relationship is so toxic or abusive the safest place for the child is not with their parents. But all that doesn’t mean we cannot lament the decline of long-term marriages as the normal and best context for bringing up children.

God’s way is best

We know that the heart of God is for children to grow up in loving marriages. Where marriage is honoured, it mitigates against sexual exploitation and manipulation. It protects the vulnerable, particularly women and children. It deeply values children, ensuring that they are only conceived when both father and mother are already committed to their love, care and protection. 

It also binds generations together, for it sees the conceiving, raising, teaching and supporting of children as a single lifelong task. It establishes stable families, where family members are tied together across multiple generations. It enables the passing on of knowledge and wisdom, culture and values, from generation to generation, blessing the young with the learning of their ancestors. It enables the union of bodies to take just one part in the union of lives, hearts and minds which true married love is about. It enables the distinct characteristics of men and women to be used for the good, not the harm, of the opposite sex. Most of all, by embedding self-sacrifice in the deepest emotional bonds in human life, it enables us to be most deeply human, as we live out as God’s images, the love between Christ and his Church.

We know that God’s way is best and so as we would expect, generally speaking, children born ‘out of wedlock’ or with unstable parental involvement have many more struggles – including medical, social, developmental behavioural and academic.

God gave the mandate to Adam and Eve at creation to fill the earth – to have babies in the context of a marriage. Having children was not a secondary consideration, not a lifestyle choice, not something to have when you felt the time was right whether within or outside of a covenantal relationship.

So let’s support and celebrate all parents whatever their situation, but at the same time keep on talking about the goodness of marriage as the best and right context for sexual union and for children being brought into the world and brought up in the world.