Yeah, Japan makes sense. Life as a single mother here is brutal from talking to others.
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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I think many children born outside marriage are still born inside a permanent relationship. In many countries it isn't normative anymore to marry when you are living together as a couple.
This is true and I do know couples like that, however there are additional wrinkles with things like Japan's koseki system, access to daycare, etc. that can play into difficulties for those as well.
True, I'd like to see the data further divided into "born to couples that could as well be married" and "born outside (long-term) relationship". I even know couples that marry after the birth of their children. My uncle married when his oldest kid was like 10 or so. And on the other hand, some couples marry during pregnancy and get divorced a few years later. I think the chart is first and foremost about how normative marriage is.
The Scandinavian countries close to the top is no suprise to me, both my kids are born outside of marriage. But I'm confused about the latin american countries. I imagined catholicism was a pretty big deal there? Wouldn't children born outside of marriage be a big no-no?
There's also the issue of what "marriage" is defined as in each country. I know that there are states in the US where you qualify as "common law" married if you just live together, both agree you are married, and say in public that you are married. Even stranger is while that sounds a like a liberal thing, it's not. It's the law in at least one of the most conservative states in the US.
I'm just spit balling here but I believe Catholics are also very against birth control and abortion, so that could play a role as well, no?
The cognitive dissonance never ceases to amaze.
Birth control = SIN so better not use it while having pre-marital sex, which is also a sin but apparently one that's less important
Of course, the very idea that birth control is wrong is completely non-biblical as well, I've read that fucking thing front to back multiple times and never once read any verses that say "thou shalt not wrap it before you tap it"
On that note, Philippines... no data ಠ_ಠ
don't forget to check christianty Extended Universe, 2000 years of people interpreting random passages in ways that suit their narrative and makes them sound only slightly delusional
"be fruitful and multiply? ah, so i need to fuck a lot. and when i fuck a lot i need to breed a lot. and if i make any attempts at doing one without the other i am evil and a sinner and will go to hell"
Why was china and India left out of the "data?"
There's a bunch of other developing countries missing too, such as the entirety of Africa. Aside from their large populations, I'm not sure why the absence of China and India should be any more surprising than the presence of Colombia and Chile (for example).
It is a bit of a funny mix, though, which makes me wonder of the person who made it was trying to push a narrative.
More likely it's the limitations of the data sources they could find
Greenland.
I don't know about china, but India is so conservative that it's pretty close to 0, but also probably very hard to get any reliable statistics
Didn't seem to be a problem for some others like Japan
As far as data goes, Japan is far more trustworthy than China. By a few million miles.
What's up, Norway?
A lot of people just don’t get married, or do so very late. I bet the vast majority of those babies are born into healthy long-term relationships.
Ahh. I confused 'outside of marriage' with 'children born our of affair'. It did not fit my image of Scandinavians at all to see them near the top of the list.
The high percentages make way more sense to me now.