Kids in Immigrant Families Among Least Likely to Live in Single-Parent Homes

Posted March 9, 2017
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Blog kidsinimmigrantfamiliesamong 2017

Today in Amer­i­ca, more than 1 in 3 chil­dren live in sin­gle-par­ent families.

The like­li­hood of being raised in a one-par­ent house­hold is low­est for Asian chil­dren (16%), white chil­dren (25%) and chil­dren from immi­grant fam­i­lies (25%).

At the oth­er end of the sta­tis­ti­cal spec­trum: Black and Amer­i­can Indi­an chil­dren are more like­ly to live in a sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­ly than in a two-par­ent house­hold. In 2015 — the most recent year for which data are avail­able — 66% of black kids and 52% of Amer­i­can Indi­an kids lived in a one-par­ent family.

Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, research indi­cates that two par­ents are bet­ter than one. Dual-par­ent house­holds are bet­ter posi­tioned to build a sta­ble foun­da­tion for fam­i­lies, and they can offer chil­dren greater access to resource and opportunities.

Explore more fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty data — at the state and nation­al lev­el — in the KIDS COUNT Data Center.