The economics of single motherhood; Mississippi leads nation with more than half of babies born to unwed moms

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - No other state has a higher rate of children born to single mothers than Mississippi, at 53.7 percent. That compares with the lowest state, Utah, at about 18 percent.

Last year 46,456 Mississippi children were born, 24,939 to single mothers. The 2008 figures show those numbers rising.

Pete Walley, an economic analyst who studies and reports trends to state leaders, warns if Mississippi doesn't change the numbers, it will permanently become No. 50 in income, health, education, economy, even in per capita traffic deaths.

On the Gulf Coast, for example, Bay St. Louis, Miss. is above the state average with 64.2 percent of its births to unwed mothers; Ocean Springs is below the state average, 39.8 percent. Still, that's astonishingly high.

"Mississippi will not be able to improve its economy or build a more coherent, equitable society until we significantly reduce the number of births to single mothers and return to two-parent families," said Walley. "Studies on children born and raised to single mothers clearly demonstrate a significant negative effect on both the children born to single mothers and on society as a whole.

"This trend will doom the majority of Mississippians _ and not just those having the babies _ to a lower quality of life and poor state economic performance."

First place for unwed mothers alternates between New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Walley is director of the Bureau of Long Range Economic Development Planning for the Mississippi Institutes of Higher Learning. He studies trends to paint economic pictures for Mississippi's leaders to help guide in legislation and funding. When he feels they aren't listening to the statistics, such as with single mothers, he uses other means, including the media, to get out the message.

Walley said he wants to make one point clear: He does not present his findings to be judgmental or to support moral attitudes about marriage. For him it's economics, and the relationship of single-mother births to the state's uncertain economy and future.

Teens giving birth is, for some, the most startling of the recently released autumn figures from Mississippi State Department of Health and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Walley uses.

Walley estimated annual teen birth costs to Mississippi taxpayers exceed $230 million a year, and the cost to society exceeds $540 million. Those figures are just for teens and is not the broader picture of all single moms, many of whom rely heavily on state welfare.

About 15 percent of all single-mother births are to teens aged 15 to 19. That is a slight drop from a decade ago but the trend is again upward, as are the rest of the unwed-mother statistics. Around the turn of the 21st century a rise began across the state that shows no sign of improving.

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"If we have that many children born to single mothers, the standard of living is low not just for them but for all of us," said Walley. "The high number of single mothers fundamentally changes the way our economy works.

"Mississippi is in grave danger of forever locking ourselves into 50th place. Leadership sees single mothers as a social phenomenon that will correct itself over time. I see it as a systemic issue that directs where our state will go over the next 50 years."

To show how birth rate trends can change, Walley points to 60 years ago, when the rate of unwed Mississippi mothers was less than 18 percent.

"In my opinion, improving the state's human capital will be the determining factor as to whether Mississippi breaks out of its 100-year position as last in the rankings, or begins converging steadily toward the center of the nation's economy."

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© 2008, The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.).