The American Family — For the Most Part — Still Has Two Parents

The major­i­ty of chil­dren in Amer­i­ca — two out of every three kids — live in mar­ried-cou­ple house­holds, accord­ing to the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter. The nation’s remain­ing 25 mil­lion chil­dren live in sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies, with three out of every four of these kids grow­ing up in moth­er-only households.

At the state lev­el, Utah has the high­est inci­dence of chil­dren liv­ing in mar­ried-cou­ple house­holds, (81%) and Mis­sis­sip­pi has the low­est (54%).

Pay­ing atten­tion to parental pres­ence at the house­hold lev­el is impor­tant, since sin­gle par­ents gen­er­al­ly have few­er resources to put toward their fam­i­ly com­pared to their mar­ried-cou­ple coun­ter­parts. Sup­ports like child care assis­tance; fam­i­ly leave and paid time off are vital and can help sin­gle par­ents care for them­selves and their chil­dren in basic ways.

Vis­it the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter for more Fam­i­ly and Com­mu­ni­ty data at the state and nation­al level.

Child pop­u­la­tion by house­hold type
Chil­dren in sin­gle-par­ent families
Chil­dren liv­ing with cohab­it­ing domes­tic partners
Chil­dren in the care of grandparents
Child pop­u­la­tion by nativity