Births to Unwed Mothers

Making rather a different point, Krugman points to a map of births to unwed mothers, from the child trends data bank.  The trend information is startling.

The proportion of births to unmarried women has increased dramatically in recent decades, rising from 5.3 percent in 1960 to 32.2 percent in 1995. After some stability in the mid-1990s, the rate has risen each year since 1997, reaching 41.0 percent in 2009 (preliminary estimate). (Figure 1)

Holy yikes!

Here's the map.  

The thing that strikes me is that in the ultra-socially-conservative, Jeebus loving southland you find every one of the States leading out-of-wedlock births:  South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico and Arizona.  Interestingly, one of the three states with the lowest out-of-wedlock percentages is Utah.  I attribute this to a dearth of unmarried women.

But, Utah also leads the U.S in the use of paid-subscription on-line porn.  Maybe they have an excess of unmarried men.  Or maybe it's just that Utah is a very conservative State.  You see, those are the ones that use porn the most.  Next in line is Mississippi.  Following next (grouped, not in order) are Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota (understandably) and Florida.    The next group includes Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia, West Virginia (10th on the list,) Missouri, New York, Maine, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Eight of the top ten porn using States went for McShame in the last presidential election.  States that ban gay marriage use more porn.  States where people claim to have "old fashioned views about marriage and family," and that "AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behavior," use LOTS more porn.

Of course, no State is perfect.  In fact, each one is the worst at something.  Check here to see how yours stacks up.
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