On The Spot (Part IV) Our high unwed birth rate speaks volumes, but what does it actually say? (Part I)

SKNVIBES accessed birth statistics from 2002 to 2007 and found that unmarried women gave birth to nearly 80 percent of the babies who were born in St. Kitts and Nevis (Source: Health Information Unit in the Ministry of Health). 

In St. Kitts and Nevis, 76 percent of all births in 2002 were out of wedlock, 77 percent in 2003, 73 percent in 2004, 78 percent in 2005, 82 percent in 2006, and 78 percent in 2007.

This trend is not a recent one.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Patrick Martin said the national figures for live births outside of marriage have looked about the same for the past 20 years. Dr. Martin has been a practicing pediatrician on the island of St. Kitts since 1989.   

Fifteen years earlier in 1974, unwed births accounted for 84 percent of all births in St. Kitts and 76 percent in Nevis. 

Bonham C. Richardson writes in Blackness in Latin America & the Caribbean: Social Dynamics and Cultural Transformations (Blacks in the Diaspora) (1998) that, “Of 916 live births on St. Kitts in 1974, 774 were from unwed parents; on Nevis 172 of 227 babies were born out of wedlock.”  He cites “Data from the Statistical Unit, Government Health Department, Basseterre, St. Kitts” as his source.

Richardson also writes that, “High ‘illegitimacy’ rates on both islands and traditional male absenteeism help to lead to matrifocal family types on St. Kitts and Nevis. Formal marriage is most common among, but not confined to, the small middle class on both islands. Marriage never has been regarded as a necessary precondition for poor couples of St. Kitts and Nevis to live together and raise a family.”

I asked Dr. Martin, “Do we value marriage as a society?” 

His matter-of-fact response was “No!” 

Following up, I wondered: “Why not, and particularly the men, because traditionally it’s the man who has to ask, right?”

“I have not seen surveys concerning the value of marriage,” Dr. Martin said, adding that, “I can only speculate that marriage connotes a responsibility to one person and if someone is not prepared to do that then that person is not going to go into a marriage. So it is this sense of responsibility that is not inculcated.”

There has never been an encouragement of marriages among people of African descent

The Chief Medical Officer continued: “I think a sense of responsibility can only be modelled; that is, young people learning from the adults before them. Since Colonialism and slavery, there has never been an encouragement of marriages among people of African descent. Splitting up families was a strategy to divide and conquer during slavery and Colonialism, and we [of African descent] have continued it, not for slavery and Colonialism, but for sexual purposes.”

Dr. Martin’s argument is a compelling one, considering global statistics.

A case in point is the fact that although St. Kitts and Nevis’ unwed birth rate is almost double that of the United States, the birth rate for single Black women in the U.S. is just a few percentage points below the St. Kitts-Nevis figure.

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States released birth statistics, showing that not only was there a record number of births in 2007, but births to unwed mothers also reached a high - accounting for 40 percent of all U.S. births. 

More than three-quarters of U.S. single women who gave birth in 2007 were 20 years or older and unmarried births were 60 percent for women in their early 20s. 

The U.S. birth statistics also showed that nearly 72 percent of the births to Black American women were out of wedlock compared to about 51 percent of the births to Hispanic women and 28 percent of births to non-Hispanic White women. 

Another case in point is a statistical bulletin released last year from the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom. It outlines the “Recorded ethnic identities of babies born in England and Wales, 2005”. 

The bulletin shows that more than 95 percent of Asian babies were registered to married parents compared to about half of “White British” babies and one-third of babies from the Black Caribbean group. 

“Black or Black British Caribbean” babies made up 1.2 percent (7,517 births) of all UK births in 2005.

A final case in point comes from a statistical snapshot of Canadian families. Statistics Canada (2001 Census) reported that 46 percent of Black children – aged 14 and under – lived with only one parent compared to 18 percent of other children.

Fifty-five percent of Blacks are foreign-born and they are predominantly from countries in the Caribbean and Africa, according to the 2001 Canadian Census. Black people account for 2.2 percent of the Canadian population.

In 2001, 47 percent of the Black population, about 310,500, lived in the Toronto census metropolitan area. More than half (57 percent) of the Black population in Toronto were foreign born. 

“Close to three quarters (73%) of the 178,200 foreign-born Blacks in Toronto were born in the Caribbean and South and Central America, mainly from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana,” according to a 2004 Statistics Canada document titled “Blacks in Canada: A long history”.

So 130,086 (73 percent) of the 178,200 Blacks from the Caribbean and South and Central America – who live in the Toronto census metropolitan area alone  - represent 20 percent of Canada’s Black population (662,200). 

The Statistics Canada data also show that when Black men do get married a large number of them choose to enter that commitment with women outside of their race.

“Of the nearly 118,000 couples involving Blacks in 2001, 57% involved two Black partners, while 43% were comprised of a Black person and a non-Black person, most often a Black male and a white female,” the analysis said, adding that, “The duration of residence in Canada for many Blacks may partially explain why they have one of the highest proportions of mixed marriages or common-law relationships among visible minority couples.”

The Situation in St. Kitts and Nevis

In 2007, St. Kitts had fewer marriage ceremonies than Nevis. 

According to the Government Statistics Department, there were 166 marriages performed in Nevis (est. pop. 12,050), giving a marriage rate of approximately “14 per 1,000 total population” in 2007. Whereas, there were 148 marriages performed in St. Kitts (est. pop. 28,590), giving a marriage rate of “5 per 1,000 total population” in 2007. 

With a population of 40,640, the marriage rate for St. Kitts and Nevis in 2007 was “7.7 per 1,000 total population”. (In 2005, the marriage rate for the U.S. was “7.5 per 1,000 total population,” according to the CDC.) 

It is worth noting that the marriage rate for residents of St. Kitts and Nevis may very well be lower; by how much is unclear. This is because so-called “destination weddings” (weddings performed in the Federation between couples from abroad) are, for now, included in the total that is used to calculate the Federation’s marriage rate.

The percentage of unwed births has been higher in St. Kitts than in Nevis. However, Nevis has seen a recent spike in unwed births; a sign that it could catch up to its big sister.

In 2003, 471 out of the 591 births – 80 percent – at St. Kitts hospitals were to unwed mothers.  Whereas 100 out of the 153 births that year – 65 percent – at the Nevis hospital were to unwed mothers.   

In 2002, there was a 12-percentage-point difference: 79 percent in St. Kitts and 67 percent in Nevis. In 2003, there was a 15-percentage-point difference: 80 percent in St. Kitts and 65 percent in Nevis. In 2004, there was a 13-percentage-point difference: 76 percent in St. Kitts and 63 percent in Nevis. In 2005, there was a 23-percentage-point difference: 83 percent in St. Kitts and 60 percent in Nevis. In 2006, the percentage-point difference was reduced to 7 percent: 83 percent in St. Kitts and 76 percent in Nevis. In 2007, the percentage-point difference was 9 percent: 80 percent in St. Kitts and 71 percent in Nevis.             

These statistics reflect the births that occurred locally in our four hospitals (Alexandra Hospital, Joseph N. France General Hospital, Mary Charles Hospital and Pogson Hospital) and BBAs (babies born before arrival at these hospitals). They are compiled from hospital birth forms, which register every mother’s marital status. 

Therefore, women who went off-island to give birth were not accounted for in these statistics.  According to the Chief Medical Officer, the “overwhelming majority” of births take place at JNF and Alexandra Hospitals. He estimates that less than 10 percent of babies are born outside of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.   

To be sure, the teenage birth rate in St. Kitts and Nevis has an effect on the percentage of births to unwed mothers. The rate of teenage live births in the Federation has averaged around 18 percent between 2002 and 2007. It actually declined in 2007 to 15 percent from 20 percent the previous year.    

Sex and our Society

Birth rates are affected by rates of sex, contraception and abortion.

The document, Behavioural Surveillance Surveys (BSS) in Six Countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Round 1: 2005 (Published February 12, 2007), offers insight into the rates of sex and condom use in St. Kitts and Nevis as well as five other countries in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

In St. Kitts and Nevis, 982 people between ages 15 and 24 responded to the BSS as well as 586 people between ages 25 and 49.

St. Kitts and Nevis respondents between 25 and 49 years old reported not only the highest rate of sex, but also the highest rate of sex with multiple partners. 

The BSS report (www.carec.org/documents/BSS-report.pdf) points out that because “multiple sex partnerships among women” are “highly stigmatised” in the Caribbean, female respondents likely under-reported their participation in this practice.

Respondents answered questions such as:

% of respondents who have had sex with a non-marital non-cohabiting partner in the last 12 months

% of respondents with multiple non-marital non-cohabiting sexual partners in the past 12 months

% of respondents reporting the use of a condom the last time they had sex with a non-marital non-cohabiting sexual partner

 Our high unwed birth rate speaks volumes, but what does it actually say?

Our astonishingly high unwed birth rate speaks volumes, but what does it actually say about us as a society? Should we be concerned that only two out of every 10 babies in St. Kitts and Nevis are born to married parents? What does this portend, if anything, for the future of our families and communities? 

I spoke with community members to find out what they think. They gave me a variety of perspectives; all of them thought-provoking. Tune in tomorrow, Saturday, to read excerpts of these interviews in Part Two of “Our high unwed birth rate speaks volumes, but what does it actually say?”