Youth Indicators 1996 / Indicator 8, Chart 1
SOURCE: Statistical Office of the European Communities, Demographic Statistics, 1988 and 1994; and various national sources, 1990.
Since 1960, the number of births has dropped in many industrialized countries, but the decline has been less severe in the United States. The number of births fell by 4 percent in the United States between 1960 and 1992, but it plunged by 36 percent in Germany and 38 percent in Italy.
While birth rates in many countries dropped, the number and proportion of births to unmarried women rose rapidly. This is also true for the United States. Countries vary widely in the proportion of births to unmarried women. For example, in Greece, 3 percent of the 1992 births were to unmarried women compared with 46 percent in Denmark. The proportion of births to unmarried women in the United States (30 percent) is comparable to France (33 percent) and the United Kingdom (31 percent).
