Most British babies now born out of wedlock, but for some migrants, it's a tiny minority

Half the children of British-born mothers are being born outside marriage, it emerged yesterday.

In fact, official figures indicate that only a minority of children of long-standing British parents will grow up with a married mother and father.

Most will be part of cohabiting or single-parent families. In contrast, only one in 50 children of mothers who were born in India before they came here had unmarried parents.

The figures were published by the Government's Office for National Statistics in a breakdown of births in England and Wales.

Those for British-born mothers include families whose parents migrated into England in recent decades. These - especially those from Asian families - are more likely have their children within marriage.

This means that the rate of births outside marriage to mothers from long-established British families is even higher.

The ONS figures give a picture of fast-rising birthrates, pushed up by high levels of fertility among immigrant families that mean nearly one in four of all babies was born to a mother from abroad.