SINGLE MOTHER BIRTHS & POVERTY:

Trends in Marriage, Divorce, Births & Abortions in Shelby County

Click here for a PDF version of these charts for better clarity

With low divorce rates, Shelby County does not have a divorce problem:

It has a marriage problem with a marriage rate below state and national levels:

Falling rates of marriage are reflected in an increasing number of births to single mothers:

The poverty rate among children is highly correlated to the lack of two-parent households.  Over 80% of the approximately 50,000 children living in poverty in Memphis live do not live with two-parents:

Teen Pregnancy rates have been declining but they flattened in 2003-04 and have risen since then:

Meanwhile, abortions continue to trend downward but abortion rates in the County are significantly higher than the State:

Click here to learn more about Families Matter, a ministry being restarted with an investment from Hope CCF's Hope for Memphis Fund.  Families Matter hopes to deal with some of the issues illustrated above.

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