Although more white women have babies than black women, the black women who give birth locally are more likely to be unmarried than white women.

Statistics from the Illinois Department of Public Health indicate about 2,440 white women and 550 black women in Champaign County gave birth in 2006.

About 650 – or 27 percent – of the white women were unmarried, while about 400 of the black women – 73 percent, a rate nearly three times as great as whites – were unmarried.

In 2006 in Vermilion County, 46 percent of the 948 white women who gave birth were unmarried and nearly twice as many – 86 percent – of the 220 black women who gave birth were unmarried.

"This is a concern in the black community," said the Rev. Jerome Chambers, president of the Champaign County NAACP. He suggests there are three reasons why marriage is a less-accepted option for young black women.

– Chambers said there is a tradition among black families dating back to the 1950s in which common law living is an acceptable alternative to being married.

"A lot of African-American families continue to live that way because they saw it and participated in it growing up," Chambers said.

– Chambers said that many tribal societies in Africa often did not have a tradition of monogamous marriage, and some of these attitudes have been passed on to the present generation.

"Sometimes young people see not getting married as more convenient," Chambers said. "If I don't want to live with you any longer, I just get a new boyfriend."

– Chambers said many black families in the last three generations have been matriarchal, with either a single mother or single grandmother as the head of the family or the caregiver.

"A lot of the young ladies today are not privileged to have grown up in a male-headed family, and they don't have a real model of a successful marriage," he said. "Having a single-parent family is what they know."

The Rev. Evelyn Underwood, associate minister of the New Free Will Baptist Church in Champaign, also expressed concern over the trend.

Her church has developed three programs that teach abstinence for grades 4-12.

"I'm not saying we should give condoms to kids; I can't support that," Underwood said. "But we need to do more to educate our young people.

"Younger women these days are focusing more on their careers rather than on marriage," Underwood said. "I'm 65 years old. For my generation, if you didn't marry, there was something wrong. Now it is OK for women who want to have a baby to decide they don't want to get married.

"As a minister, I can't condone this trend, since biblical principles teach us that if you're not married, you are fornicating. People used to believe in the spiritual standards more in the past. The younger generation today appears to get away from biblical principles."

Counties by the numbers

Vermilion County 2006*

1,176 live births

631 (54 percent) were to unmarried mothers

440 (70 percent) of unmarried mothers were white

189 (30 percent) of unmarried mothers were black

166 (14 percent) of total births were to teens

Champaign County 2006**

3,440# live births

About 1,250 (36 percent) were to unmarried mothers

About 650 (52 percent) of unmarried mothers were white

About 400 (32 percent) of unmarried mothers were black

310 (9 percent) of total births were to teens

Notes: *Unofficial statistics from Vermil-ion County Public Health Department; **unofficial stats from Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department; #some moms did not disclose ethnicity; all numbers in-clude residents from outside county of birth

Quick facts

In August, 172 single moms received public aid in Champaign County and 316 in Vermilion County, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services.