The price of virtue

This article offers new evidence on the determinants of U.S. unwed birth ra tes from 1981 to 1990. We show that illegitimacy rates are positively and s ignificantly correlated with payments under the Aid to Families with Depend ent Children program over a period in which real AFDC payments declined. We attribute this result to a decline in the social sanctions for illegitimac y. Because social sanctions declined, so did the cost of deviance, as well as the price for which unwed women sold their virtue.