The typical American picture of a family with 2.5 kids might not be as relevant as it once was: In 2023, there was an average of 1.94 children under 18 per family in the United States. This is a decrease from 2.33 children under 18 per family in 1960.

Familial structure in the United States

If there’s one thing the United States is known for, it’s diversity. Whether this is diversity in ethnicity, culture, or family structure, there is something for everyone in the U.S. Two-parent households in the U.S. are declining, and the number of families with no children are increasing. The number of families with children has stayed more or less constant since 2000.

Adoptions in the U.S.

Families in the U.S. don’t necessarily consist of parents and their own biological children. In 2021, around 35,940 children were adopted by married couples, and 13,307 children were adopted by single women.

The average American family in 2023 consisted of 3.15 persons. Families in the United States According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a family is a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together; all such people (including related subfamily members) are considered as members of one family. As of 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau counted about 84.33 million families in the United States. The average family consisted of 3.15 persons in 2021, down from 3.7 in the 1960s. This is reflected in the decrease of children in family households overall. In 1970, about 56 percent of all family households had children under the age of 18 living in the household. This percentage declined to about 40 percent in 2020. The average size of a family household varies greatly from state to state. The largest average families can be found in Utah, California, and Hawaii, while the smallest families can be found in Wisconsin, Vermont and Maine.

Around *** million families in the United States had three or more children under 18 living in the household in 2023. In that same year, about ***** million households had no children under 18 living in the household.

In 2021, the average size of families in Utah was 3.51 people, the largest out of any state. California, Hawaii, Texas, and Alaska rounded out the top five states with the largest average family size in that year. Nationwide, the average family size was 3.15 people.

In 2022, about 60 percent of Hispanic origin children lived with two married parents in the United States. On the other hand, about 4.3 percent of Hispanic origin children in the country lived with their father only.

United States US: Fertility Rate: Total: Births per Woman data was reported at 1.800 Ratio in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 1.843 Ratio for 2015. United States US: Fertility Rate: Total: Births per Woman data is updated yearly, averaging 2.002 Ratio from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3.654 Ratio in 1960 and a record low of 1.738 Ratio in 1976. United States US: Fertility Rate: Total: Births per Woman data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Health Statistics. Total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with age-specific fertility rates of the specified year.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Reprot (various years), (5) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and (6) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.; Weighted average; Relevance to gender indicator: it can indicate the status of women within households and a woman’s decision about the number and spacing of children.

Graph and download economic data for Total Families with Children under 18 Years Old with Married Couple (FMLWCUMC) from 1950 to 2024 about 18 years +, married, family, child, household survey, and USA.

In 2024, 34.59 percent of all households in the United States were two person households. In 1970, this figure was at 28.92 percent. Single households Single mother households are usually the most common households with children under 18 years old found in the United States. As of 2021, the District of Columbia and North Dakota had the highest share of single-person households in the United States. Household size in the United States has decreased over the past century, due to customs and traditions changing. Families are typically more nuclear, whereas in the past, multigenerational households were more common. Furthermore, fertility rates have also decreased, meaning that women do not have as many children as they used to. Average households in Utah Out of all states in the U.S., Utah was reported to have the largest average household size. This predominately Mormon state has about three million inhabitants. The Church of the Latter-Day Saints, or Mormonism, plays a large role in Utah, and can contribute to the high birth rate and household size in Utah. The Church of Latter-Day Saints promotes having many children and tight-knit families. Furthermore, Utah has a relatively young population, due to Mormons typically marrying and starting large families younger than those in other states.

The graph illustrates the number of babies born in the United States from 1995 to 2025. The x-axis represents the years, labeled from '95 to '25, while the y-axis shows the annual number of births. Over this 30-year period, birth numbers peaked at 4,316,233 in 2007 and reached a low of 3,596,017 in 2023. The data reveals relatively stable birth rates from 1995 to 2010, with slight fluctuations, followed by a gradual decline starting around 2017. The information is presented in a line graph format, effectively highlighting the long-term downward trend in U.S. birth numbers over the specified timeframe.

Note: For information on data collection, confidentiality protection, nonsampling error, subject definitions, and guidance on using the data, access the 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC) Technical Documentation..To protect respondent confidentiality, data have undergone disclosure avoidance methods which add statistical "noise" - small, random additions or subtractions - to the data so that no one can reliably link the published data to a specific person or household. As a result, data users may observe implausible and improbable data within this product and compared with other 2020 Census data products. For more information, access the 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC) Technical Documentation..The degree of uncertainty introduced by statistical noise and post-processing is represented through a 90 percent credible interval (CI). The CI does not account for the truncation of large households (maximum of 10 persons per household or 6 children under 18 years). The CI can be interpreted as providing 90 percent probability that the truncated value is between the lower and upper end points. The enumerated value can be larger than the 90% CI high value given household truncation. For information on the impact of truncation, refer to the 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC) Technical Documentation.."Families" consist of a householder and one or more other people related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption..Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC)

In 2021, the birth rate in the United States was highest in families that had under 10,000 U.S. dollars in income per year, at 62.75 births per 1,000 women. As the income scale increases, the birth rate decreases, with families making 200,000 U.S. dollars or more per year having the second-lowest birth rate, at 47.57 births per 1,000 women. Income and the birth rate Income and high birth rates are strongly linked, not just in the United States, but around the world. Women in lower income brackets tend to have higher birth rates across the board. There are many factors at play in birth rates, such as the education level of the mother, ethnicity of the mother, and even where someone lives. The fertility rate in the United States The fertility rate in the United States has declined in recent years, and it seems that more and more women are waiting longer to begin having children. Studies have shown that the average age of the mother at the birth of their first child in the United States was 27.4 years old, although this figure varies for different ethnic origins.

Although the American Community Survey (ACS) produces population, demographic and housing unit estimates, the decennial census is the official source of population totals for April 1st of each decennial year. In between censuses, the Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program produces and disseminates the official estimates of the population for the nation, states, counties, cities, and towns and estimates of housing units and the group quarters population for states and counties..Information about the American Community Survey (ACS) can be found on the ACS website. Supporting documentation including code lists, subject definitions, data accuracy, and statistical testing, and a full list of ACS tables and table shells (without estimates) can be found on the Technical Documentation section of the ACS website.Sample size and data quality measures (including coverage rates, allocation rates, and response rates) can be found on the American Community Survey website in the Methodology section..Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.ACS data generally reflect the geographic boundaries of legal and statistical areas as of January 1 of the estimate year. For more information, see Geography Boundaries by Year..Data are based on a sample and are subject to sampling variability. The degree of uncertainty for an estimate arising from sampling variability is represented through the use of a margin of error. The value shown here is the 90 percent margin of error. The margin of error can be interpreted roughly as providing a 90 percent probability that the interval defined by the estimate minus the margin of error and the estimate plus the margin of error (the lower and upper confidence bounds) contains the true value. In addition to sampling variability, the ACS estimates are subject to nonsampling error (for a discussion of nonsampling variability, see ACS Technical Documentation). The effect of nonsampling error is not represented in these tables..Users must consider potential differences in geographic boundaries, questionnaire content or coding, or other methodological issues when comparing ACS data from different years. Statistically significant differences shown in ACS Comparison Profiles, or in data users' own analysis, may be the result of these differences and thus might not necessarily reflect changes to the social, economic, housing, or demographic characteristics being compared. For more information, see Comparing ACS Data..Estimates of urban and rural populations, housing units, and characteristics reflect boundaries of urban areas defined based on 2020 Census data. As a result, data for urban and rural areas from the ACS do not necessarily reflect the results of ongoing urbanization..Explanation of Symbols:- The estimate could not be computed because there were an insufficient number of sample observations. For a ratio of medians estimate, one or both of the median estimates falls in the lowest interval or highest interval of an open-ended distribution. For a 5-year median estimate, the margin of error associated with a median was larger than the median itself.N The estimate or margin of error cannot be displayed because there were an insufficient number of sample cases in the selected geographic area. (X) The estimate or margin of error is not applicable or not available.median- The median falls in the lowest interval of an open-ended distribution (for example "2,500-")median+ The median falls in the highest interval of an open-ended distribution (for example "250,000+").** The margin of error could not be computed because there were an insufficient number of sample observations.*** The margin of error could not be computed because the median falls in the lowest interval or highest interval of an open-ended distribution.***** A margin of error is not appropriate because the corresponding estimate is controlled to an independent population or housing estimate. Effectively, the corresponding estimate has no sampling error and the margin of error may be treated as zero.

The average American household consisted of 2.51 people in 2023.

Households in the U.S.

As shown in the statistic, the number of people per household has decreased over the past decades.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines a household as follows: “a household includes all the persons who occupy a housing unit as their usual place of residence. A housing unit is a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a group of rooms, or a single room that is occupied (or if vacant, is intended for occupancy) as separate living quarters. Separate living quarters are those in which the occupants live and eat separately from any other persons in the building and which have direct access from outside the building or through a common hall. The occupants may be a single family, one person living alone, two or more families living together, or any other group of related or unrelated persons who share living arrangements. (People not living in households are classified as living in group quarters.).”

The population of the United States has been growing steadily for decades. Since 1960, the number of households more than doubled from 53 million to over 131 million households in 2023.

Most of these households, about 34 percent, are two-person households. The distribution of U.S. households has changed over the years though. The percentage of single-person households has been on the rise since 1970 and made up the second largest proportion of households in the U.S. in 2022, at 28.88 percent.

In concordance with the rise of single-person households, the percentage of family households with own children living in the household has declined since 1970 from 56 percent to 40.26 percent in 2022.

Note: For information on data collection, confidentiality protection, nonsampling error, subject definitions, and guidance on using the data, access the 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC) Technical Documentation..To protect respondent confidentiality, data have undergone disclosure avoidance methods which add statistical "noise" - small, random additions or subtractions - to the data so that no one can reliably link the published data to a specific person or household. As a result, data users may observe implausible and improbable data within this product and compared with other 2020 Census data products. For more information, access the 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC) Technical Documentation..The degree of uncertainty introduced by statistical noise and post-processing is represented through a 90 percent credible interval (CI). The CI does not account for the truncation of large households (maximum of 10 persons per household or 6 children under 18 years). The CI can be interpreted as providing 90 percent probability that the truncated value is between the lower and upper end points. The enumerated value can be larger than the 90% CI high value given household truncation. For information on the impact of truncation, refer to the 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC) Technical Documentation..Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census Supplemental Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (S-DHC)

This layer was developed by the Research & Analytics Group of the Atlanta Regional Commission, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 5-year estimates for 2013-2017, to show family types by Atlanta City Council Districts in the Atlanta region.

The user should note that American Community Survey data represent estimates derived from a surveyed sample of the population, which creates some level of uncertainty, as opposed to an exact measure of the entire population (the full census count is only conducted once every 10 years and does not cover as many detailed characteristics of the population). Therefore, any measure reported by ACS should not be taken as an exact number – this is why a corresponding margin of error (MOE) is also given for ACS measures. The size of the MOE relative to its corresponding estimate value provides an indication of confidence in the accuracy of each estimate. Each MOE is expressed in the same units as its corresponding measure; for example, if the estimate value is expressed as a number, then its MOE will also be a number; if the estimate value is expressed as a percent, then its MOE will also be a percent.

The user should also note that for relatively small geographic areas, such as census tracts shown here, ACS only releases combined 5-year estimates, meaning these estimates represent rolling averages of survey results that were collected over a 5-year span (in this case 2013-2017). Therefore, these data do not represent any one specific point in time or even one specific year. For geographic areas with larger populations, 3-year and 1-year estimates are also available.

For further explanation of ACS estimates and margin of error, visit Census ACS website.

Naming conventions:

Prefixes:

None

Count

p

Percent

r

Rate

m

Median

a

Mean (average)

t

Aggregate (total)

ch

Change in absolute terms (value in t2 - value in t1)

pch

Percent change ((value in t2 - value in t1) / value in t1)

chp

Change in percent (percent in t2 - percent in t1)

Suffixes:

None

Change over two periods

_e

Estimate from most recent ACS

_m

Margin of Error from most recent ACS

_00

Decennial 2000

Attributes:

SumLevel

Summary level of geographic unit (e.g., County, Tract, NSA, NPU, DSNI, SuperDistrict, etc)

GEOID

Census tract Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) code

NAME

Name of geographic unit

Planning_Region

Planning region designation for ARC purposes

Acres

Total area within the tract (in acres)

SqMi

Total area within the tract (in square miles)

County

County identifier (combination of Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) codes for state and county)

CountyName

County Name

Families_e

# Family households, 2017

Families_m

# Family households, 2017 (MOE)

MarriedCouple_e

# Married-couple families, 2017

MarriedCouple_m

# Married-couple families, 2017 (MOE)

pMarriedCouple_e

% Married-couple families, 2017

pMarriedCouple_m

% Married-couple families, 2017 (MOE)

MarriedOwnChild_e

# Married-couple families with own child, 2017

MarriedOwnChild_m

# Married-couple families with own child, 2017 (MOE)

pMarriedOwnChild_e

% Married-couple families with own child, 2017

pMarriedOwnChild_m

% Married-couple families with own child, 2017 (MOE)

MaleNoWife_e

# Male-headed families, no wife present, 2017

MaleNoWife_m

# Male-headed families, no wife present, 2017 (MOE)

pMaleNoWife_e

% Male-headed families, no wife present, 2017

pMaleNoWife_m

% Male-headed families, no wife present, 2017 (MOE)

MaleNoWifeOwnChild_e

# Male-headed families, no wife present with own child under 18 years, 2017

MaleNoWifeOwnChild_m

# Male-headed families, no wife present with own child under 18 years, 2017 (MOE)

pMaleNoWifeOwnChild_e

% Male-headed families, no wife present with own child under 18 years, 2017

pMaleNoWifeOwnChild_m

% Male-headed families, no wife present with own child under 18 years, 2017 (MOE)

FemaleNoHusband_e

# Female-headed families, no husband present, 2017

FemaleNoHusband_m

# Female-headed families, no husband present, 2017 (MOE)

pFemaleNoHusband_e

% Female-headed families, no husband present, 2017

pFemaleNoHusband_m

% Female-headed families, no husband present, 2017 (MOE)

FemaleNoHusbOwnChild_e

# Female-headed families, no husband present with own child under 18 years, 2017

FemaleNoHusbOwnChild_m

# Female-headed families, no husband present with own child under 18 years, 2017 (MOE)

pFemaleNoHusbOwnChild_e

% Female-headed families, no husband present with own child under 18 years, 2017

pFemaleNoHusbOwnChild_m

% Female-headed families, no husband present with own child under 18 years, 2017 (MOE)

last_edited_date

Last date the feature was edited by ARC

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Atlanta Regional Commission

Date: 2013-2017

For additional information, please visit the Census ACS website.

{"definition": "Percentage of households with children in which children were food insecure, by State. Households with food-insecure children were unable, at times during the year, to provide adequate food for one or more child because the household lacked money and other resources for food. For most of these households, inadequacy was in quality and variety of foods; for about one in ten, amounts of food provided were also inadequate.", "availableYears": "2003-2011 (aggregate data)", "name": "Child food insecurity (% households, multiple-year average), 2003-11*", "units": "Percent", "shortName": "FOODINSEC_CHILD_03_11", "geographicLevel": "State", "dataSources": "Data are from an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau as a supplement to the monthly Current Population Survey. USDA sponsors the annual survey, and USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) compiles and analyzes the responses. The surveys were of representative samples of the U.S. civilian population and included between 15,000 and 18,000 households with children each year. (However, about a fourth of the sample in the 2007 survey was not used for food security estimates because a proposed wording change tested in those households did not perform adequately.) The survey is conducted both by telephone and in person so that households with no telephone are not underrepresented. The food security survey asked one adult respondent in each household a series of questions about experiences and behaviors that indicate food insecurity. The food security status of children in the household was assessed by responses to a subset of questions about the conditions and experiences of children. For more information on the methodology, see Coleman-Jensen, Alisha, William McFall and Mark Nord. Food Insecurity in Households With Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics, 2010-11, EIB 113, USDA/ERS, May 2013 (Table 3), (http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib-economic-information-bulletin/eib113.aspx). Note: margins of error are substantial for some States; comparisons between States should take into consideration margins of error published in the source report."}

© FOODINSEC_CHILD_03_11 This layer is sourced from gis.ers.usda.gov.

The American Community Survey Education Tabulation (ACS-ED) is a custom tabulation of the ACS produced for the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The ACS-ED provides a rich collection of social, economic, demographic, and housing characteristics for school systems, school-age children, and the parents of school-age children. In addition to focusing on school-age children, the ACS-ED provides enrollment iterations for children enrolled in public school. The data profiles include percentages (along with associated margins of error) that allow for comparison of school district-level conditions across the U.S. For more information about the NCES ACS-ED collection, visit the NCES Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) program at: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/edge/Demographic/ACS

In 2022, there were about 25.8 million children between the ages of 12 and 17 years old living in the United States. On the other hand, there were about 22.4 million children between the ages of zero and five years old in the country.