OUT-OF-WEDLOCK, TEEN BIRTH RATES DROP.

Byline: Steven A. Holmes The New York Times

For the first time in nearly two decades, the rate of births among unmarried women declined in 1995, and for the fourth year in a row the teen-age birth rate dropped, the National Center for Health Statistics said Friday.

The out-of-wedlock birth rate dropped to 44.9 live births per 1,000 unmarried women last year, down from 46.9 births in 1994, a decline of 4 percent, according to a report by the agency, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the same time, the birth rate for teen-agers declined to 56.9 births per 1,000 girls in 1995, from 58.9 births the year before, for girls 15 to 19.

Both rates, for out-of-wedlock births and for teen-age births, are part of a general decline in the nation's birth rate. For the fifth consecutive year, the total number of births decreased and the birth rate of 14.8 births per 1,000 population was the lowest level in 20 years.

Analysts say about half of the decline in the out-of-wedlock birth rate stemmed from changes in reporting births in California, so that children whose parents had different surnames were no longer automatically considered to have been born out of wedlock. The analysts noted that 37 percent of the country's Latino babies were born to California residents last year, and so the reporting change resulted in fewer Latino infants' being counted erroneously as out-of-wedlock births.

Even with the change in reporting, the one-year drop in out-of-wedlock births and some related statistical markers is significant, analysts said.

``There is still a real decline,'' said Stephanie Ventura, a demographer with the National Center for Health Statistics and the author of its report.

While the drop in both the out-of-wedlock rate and the rate in teen-age births are its most eye-catching features, the report, ``Births and Deaths: United States, 1995,'' included a wealth of data indicating that some of the country's most troubling social trends appear to be abating, although in some categories only slightly:

Homicide rates fell by 15 percent, when adjusted to factor in the aging of the general population. It was the largest decline among the leading causes of deaths in 1995, and the decrease was double that of the decline of 1994 against 1993, and continued the nationwide trend in lower homicide rates.

Infant mortality rates reached a record low of 7.5 babies per 1,000 live births, a 6 percent drop from 1994.

For the first time since 1987, when AIDS began to be listed separately as a cause of death and became the leading killer in certain age groups, the rate of death stayed steady. Still, the total number of deaths from AIDS reached a record high last year, 42,506.

Overall life expectancy reached 75.8 years last year, tying the previous record high reached in 1992. Life expectancy for African-American males also rose, to 65.4 years, the highest level since 1985, when AIDS deaths and sharp increases in homicides began to afflict inner-city neighborhoods.