Charles Murray writing in the online American magazine blog has come up with some starting statistics on changing white illegitimacy rates. Source: see link below
http://blog.american.com/?p=714
He breaks the rates down by two time periods: 1980-1990 and 2007
He further breaks the rates down by social class as follows:
White overclass - 17 years of education with family incomes over $100,000
White middle class - Family incomes at least $60,000
Working class - Family incomes less than $60,000 and not in underclass
Underclass - Less than 12 years education with family incomes less than $20,000
Murray says these four classes split the white population about 10-40-40-10 percent
As Murray states:
It comes down to this: well-educated white women in moderately
affluent circumstances almost never had babies without a husband, and
women from middle class homes were almost as finicky about requiring a
husband. At the same time, white women with no more than a high school
education in low-income households were having nearly half of their
babies without a husband. And that was in a population that had an overall illegitimacy ratio
of 11 percent.
How do the classes break down now? As it happens, I’ve
spent the last few weeks exploring that question. I’m not done, and
want to save that discussion for a formal presentation in any case, but
here are some tentative estimates: The illegitimacy ratio for the white
underclass is probably now in the region of 70 percent. I think that
the proportion for the white working class may be above 40 percent. The
white middle class is approaching 20 percent—a scarily high figure when
you think about all the ways that the middle class has been the spine
of the nation.
|
|
White Illegitimacy
Rate |
|
|
Social class (% of pop.) |
1980 to 1990 |
2007 |
|
Overclass (10%) |
1.7% |
4% |
|
Middle class (40%) |
4.0% |
20% |
|
Working class (40%) |
10.2% |
40% |
|
Under class (10%) |
44.5% |
70% |
The white overclass? They’re still living in the 1950s—their ratio is probably about 4 or 5 percent tops.
But while the elite may continue to live in its pleasant little world for a while, that world is not going to bear much resemblance to the rest of America. And, increasingly, the rest of America isn’t going to bear much resemblance to the America we used to celebrate
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