ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE IN THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, America needs more rich unwed mothers!

UPDATE: Okay, that was a bit of a tease. But then again, read this:

High-achieving women are far less likely than women in the general population to have children out of wedlock. Only 7 percent of never-married high-achieving women between 28 and 35 had had children, according to the CPS. In contrast, fully 32 percent of other never-married working women had done so. One hardly need look farther afield to explain why only 60 percent of high-achieving women had children at ages 36 to 40, whereas among working women generally the figure is 66 percent. High-achieving women are simply much more reluctant to take on single motherhood.

The so-called baby bust thus has far less to do with female accomplishment or age-related infertility than it does with the persistence of traditional values among economic elites. For high-achieving women, it might as well still be the Eisenhower era, which was the last time the nation as a whole had such a low rate of unmarried births. Because of high-achieving women’s greater behavioral conservatism, it is marriage — not degree of professional success — that is the single largest determinant of whether they will have children.

See where the high-income baby-bust comes from? Sure, TAPPED coyly suggests later on that rich women should just consider marrying younger men — but the data speak for themselves, and they’re up front. And that would get us out of that dreadful Eisenhower era!

Er, or you could conclude that the avoidance of unwed motherhood has a causal relationship to “elite” economic status, I suppose.