According to World Magazine, fifty years ago, only about 8 percent of babies in the United States were born to single women. Today that figure is over 40 percent.
A new study presented at the 2017 American Sociological Association meeting indicated the increase of babies born out of wedlock may be due to the way the media portrays celebrity lifestyles.
According to the study, celebrity lifestyles have had a huge impact on social norms and the makeup of the traditional American family. "When the media depicts celebrities as successful, beautiful, brilliant, interesting and funny, we want to be like them," World reported.
Author and speaker Glenn Stanton claims that "having children outside marriage is often the status divider in society today. When the media portrays a single celebrity who has children as successful and happy, we think it should work out the same for us."
In reality, what is portrayed by the media is not always as it appears. For the largest percent of the population, "these celebrities are really communicating an unrealistic and imaginary world by saying you can have babies with lots of different men and still drive nice cars and live in nice houses and have a great career," Stanton told World Magazine.