Single Parents Raising More Than a Third of U.S. Kids

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The sta­tis­tics are in — and sug­gest that sin­gle-par­ent house­holds are grow­ing more com­mon across America.

In 2014, 25 mil­lion kids — 35% of the country’s chil­dren — lived in sin­gle-par­ent families.

Com­pared with kids in mar­ried-cou­ple fam­i­lies, kids raised by one par­ent are more like­ly to drop out of school, have or cause a teen preg­nan­cy and get divorced as an adult, accord­ing to research.

Forty-six states report­ed an uptick in the num­ber of kids raised in sin­gle par­ent house­holds, with the largest jumps occur­ring in New Hamp­shire and Delaware. Utah has the low­est inci­dence of kids being raised by one par­ent (19%) while Louisiana and Mis­sis­sip­pi top the list, with near­ly half of all kids grow­ing up in sin­gle-par­ent families.

Take a clos­er look at the struc­ture of Amer­i­can fam­i­lies — and view relat­ed sta­tis­tics at the state and nation­al lev­el — in the KIDS COUNT Data Center.

• Chil­dren in sin­gle-par­ent families
• Chil­dren liv­ing with cohab­it­ing domes­tic partners
• Child pop­u­la­tion by house­hold type