Why a sixfold jump in unwed parents since the 1970s?
Ermisch, the University of Essex professor, sees the origins of the trend in the contraceptive pill, which began to enjoy wide popularity in Europe in the 1970s. “It used to be very costly to delay marriage,” he argues. “Either you didn’t have sex or you risked having an illegitimate baby. The pill made delay less costly,” he says, and as live-in couples formed – and firmed up – increasingly they decided to start a family. At the same time, suggests Dirk Konietzka, coauthor of a German study carried out in 2003 by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, “much of it has to do with the modernization of womens’ role, and also that women who have children can work. There are fewer reasons to get married.” Changing social mores in societies where religion and churches have suffered declining influence have also had an impact. “It is clearly apparent in all the countries that those who became mothers within marriage were more religious than their counterparts who had their first c
