WHAT'S IN A NAME? LEGITIMACY.

Byline: Ann Bancroft Associated Press

California's ``epidemic'' of unwed mothers includes some women who would be startled to find themselves counted - married mothers who elect to keep their maiden names.

As a result, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of babies born to married women are counted in the anonymous tally of births to unwed mothers.

California is one of five states in which birth certificates do not include the marital status of parents. So state and federal number counters trying to determine how many California babies are born out of wedlock use what they call an ``inferential method.''

``If (new mothers) sign the certificates with their maiden name, and the baby has the father's name, they're presumed not married,'' explained Debbie Rhea, supervisor in the state Office of Vital Records. ``There's not a box where we can add that `the names are different, but they're married.' ''

Rhea's office sends photocopied birth certificates to the National Center for Health Statistics, the data-gathering arm of the Health and Human Services Department, which reports demographic trends in all states. The center's analysis suggested that 35 percent of all babies born in California in 1993, the last year with full statistics, had unmarried parents.

``I am an unmarried woman and my child was born out of wedlock? I can't wait to tell my mother-in-law,'' exclaimed Assemblywoman Martha Escutia, a Democrat from Huntington Park who has been married two years to political consultant Leo Briones and last June gave birth to Andres Briones.

The count of unwed mothers is important in setting spending on social programs such as welfare and health care for children. Many unwed mothers are poor and unable to work without child care, they are less prone to seek prenatal advice, and their infants are frequently born underweight and sickly.

California's figure, interestingly, does not take into account the number of unwed mothers who are financially stable and have adequate means to care for their out-of-wedlock children.

Gov. Pete Wilson, in his January State of the State address, declared that children of unwed mothers are ``overwhelmingly more likely to drop out of school, to abuse drugs, to land in jail, to have their own children out of wedlock and to become trapped in welfare dependency.''

``All of the problems tearing apart the fabric of our society have deep roots in this exploding epidemic of out-of-wedlock births,'' Wilson said.

There's no way to know how many married California women keep their own last names. Demographers at the state Finance Department and the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Census Bureau declined to make guesses.

But John Rolph, a statistician at the University of Southern California, said that the formula for determining the number of unwed mothers seems deeply flawed. ``I would expect it to be quite unreliable,'' Rolph said.

Assemblywoman Jackie Speier has written a bill to require marital status in the confidential section of California birth certificates. The Burlingame Democrat, who never took her late husband's last name, has two children.

``What's the harm if we're a few points off?'' Speier's chief of staff, Richard Steffen, asked rhetorically. ``We use this to forecast welfare burdens in the future. . . . We're also looking at a link with an increase in low birth weights.''

When the national center put California's out-of-wedlock births at 35 percent of all births in 1993, it was the ninth-highest rate in the country, behind the District of Columbia, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, New York, South Carolina and Georgia.

The nation's capital reported that a staggering 67.8 percent of its babies were born to unwed mothers. The national average was 31 percent.

The four states besides California that omit marital status on birth certificates are New York, Connecticut, Michigan and Nevada. They, however, provide other useful data, such as paternity affidavits, to help determine which mothers are unmarried, record keepers said.

Statisticians at the national center acknowledge their approach in California is less than ideal but insist their numbers are nonetheless ``pretty close to accurate,'' said NCHS demographer Stephanie Ventura.

She based her confidence on comparisons against births in Western states that do provide marital status and a decade-old comparison of California's ``inferred'' statistics with actual hospital records and interviews.

California's ``inferred'' rate of 27.1 percent in 1979, for example, was considered in line with Arizona's rate that year of 29.7 percent and Hawaii's rate of 27.5 percent.

The 1985 study also suggested that 95 babies found wrongly classified as born to unwed mothers in one county could be balanced out by 106 births wrongly credited to married parents.

There are signs, however, that the National Center for Health Statistics is rethinking its methodology. In a March letter supporting Speier's bill, an official expressed concern about accuracy.

``We feel that a direct question on the mother's marital status on the California birth certificate would be of great value . . . because California accounts for 15 percent of U.S. births,'' wrote Mary Anne Freedman, director of the center's Division of Vital Statistics.

Freedman, noting growing interest ``in accurately counting the number of births to unmarried women because of various welfare reform initiatives,'' said California's practice would prove more and more troublesome as ``increasing numbers of married women retain their maiden surname as their legal name after marriage.''