This graph shows the Percentage of households led by a female householder with no spouse present with own children under 18 years living in the household in the U.S. in 2021, by state. In 2021, about 4.24 percent of Californian households were single mother households with at least one child.
Additional information on single mother households and poverty in the United States
For most single mothers a constant battle persists between finding the time and energy to raise their children and the demands of working to supply an income to house and feed their families. The pressures of a single income and the high costs of childcare mean that the risk of poverty for these families is a tragic reality. Comparison of the overall United States poverty rate since 1990 with that of the poverty rate for families with a female householder shows that poverty is much more prevalent in the latter. In 2021, while the overall rate was at 11.6 percent, the rate of poverty for single mother families was 23 percent. Moreover, the degree of fluctuation tends to be lower for single female household families, suggesting the rate of poverty for these groups is less affected by economic conditions.
The sharp rise in the number of children living with a single mother or single father in the United States from 1970 to 2022 suggests more must be done to ensure that families in such situations are able to avoid poverty. Moreover, attention should also be placed on overall racial income inequality given the higher rate of poverty for Hispanic single mother families than their white or Asian counterparts.
This dataset includes birth rates for unmarried women by age group, race, and Hispanic origin in the United States since 1970.
Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in:
• Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm.
National data on births by Hispanics origin exclude data for Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma in 1989; for New Hampshire and Oklahoma in 1990; for New Hampshire in 1991 and 1992. Information on reporting Hispanic origin is detailed in the Technical Appendix for the 1999 public-use natality data file (see (ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/DVS/natality/Nat1999doc.pdf.)
All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Starting in 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother.
Since 1960, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided estimates of expenditures on children from birth through age 17. This technical report presents the most recent estimates for married- couple and single-parent families using data from the 2011-15 Consumer Expenditure Survey (all data presented in 2015 dollars). Data and methods used in calculating annual child-rearing expenses are described. Estimates are provided for married-couple and single-parent families with two children for major components of the budget by age of child, family income, and region of residence. For the overall United States, annual child-rearing expense estimates ranged between $12,350 and $13,900 for a child in a two-child, married-couple family in the middle-income group. Adjustment factors for households with less than or greater than two children are also provided. Expenses vary considerably by household income level, region, and composition, emphasizing that a single estimate may not be applicable to all families. Results of this study may be of use in developing State child support and foster care guidelines, as well as public health and family-centered educational programs. i
NCHS - Percent Distribution of Births to Unmarried Women by Age Group: United States
Description
This dataset includes percent distribution of births to unmarried women by age group in the United States since 1970. Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in: • Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/HHS-Official/nchs-percent-distribution-of-births-to-unmarried-w.
This dataset includes live births, birth rates, and fertility rates by race of mother in the United States since 1960.
Data availability varies by race and ethnicity groups. All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Since 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother. For race, data are available for Black and White births since 1960, and for American Indians/Alaska Native and Asian/Pacific Islander births since 1980. Data on Hispanic origin are available since 1989. Teen birth rates for specific racial and ethnic categories are also available since 1989. From 2003 through 2015, the birth data by race were based on the “bridged” race categories (5). Starting in 2016, the race categories for reporting birth data changed; the new race and Hispanic origin categories are: Non-Hispanic, Single Race White; Non-Hispanic, Single Race Black; Non-Hispanic, Single Race American Indian/Alaska Native; Non-Hispanic, Single Race Asian; and, Non-Hispanic, Single Race Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (5,6). Birth data by the prior, “bridged” race (and Hispanic origin) categories are included through 2018 for comparison.
SOURCES
NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, birth data (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm); public-use data files (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov/).
REFERENCES
National Office of Vital Statistics. Vital Statistics of the United States, 1950, Volume I. 1954. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/vsus_1950_1.pdf.
Hetzel AM. U.S. vital statistics system: major activities and developments, 1950-95. National Center for Health Statistics. 1997. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/usvss.pdf.
National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Statistics of the United States, 1967, Volume I–Natality. 1969. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/nat67_1.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, et al. Births: Final data for 2015. National vital statistics reports; vol 66 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_01.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, Driscoll AK, Drake P. Births: Final data for 2016. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 67 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2018. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_01.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, Driscoll AK, Births: Final data for 2018. National vital statistics reports; vol 68 no 13. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2019. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_13.pdf.
This dataset includes teen birth rates for females by age group, race, and Hispanic origin in the United States since 1960.
Data availability varies by race and ethnicity groups. All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Since 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother. For race, data are available for Black and White births since 1960, and for American Indians/Alaska Native and Asian/Pacific Islander births since 1980. Data on Hispanic origin are available since 1989. Teen birth rates for specific racial and ethnic categories are also available since 1989. From 2003 through 2015, the birth data by race were based on the “bridged” race categories (5). Starting in 2016, the race categories for reporting birth data changed; the new race and Hispanic origin categories are: Non-Hispanic, Single Race White; Non-Hispanic, Single Race Black; Non-Hispanic, Single Race American Indian/Alaska Native; Non-Hispanic, Single Race Asian; and, Non-Hispanic, Single Race Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (5,6). Birth data by the prior, “bridged” race (and Hispanic origin) categories are included through 2018 for comparison.
National data on births by Hispanic origin exclude data for Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma in 1989; New Hampshire and Oklahoma in 1990; and New Hampshire in 1991 and 1992. Birth and fertility rates for the Central and South American population includes other and unknown Hispanic. Information on reporting Hispanic origin is detailed in the Technical Appendix for the 1999 public-use natality data file (see ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/DVS/natality/Nat1999doc.pdf).
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
Analysis of ‘NCHS - Percent Distribution of Births to Unmarried Women by Age Group: United States’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/52604432-17bd-454d-a5ba-1c76f318ddca on 27 January 2022.
--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---
This dataset includes percent distribution of births to unmarried women by age group in the United States since 1970.
Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in:
• Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm.
SOURCES
CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, birth data (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm); public-use data files (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/Vitalstatsonline.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov/).
REFERENCES
Curtin SC, Ventura SJ, Martinez GM. Recent declines in nonmarital childbearing in the United States. NCHS data brief, no 162. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db162.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, et al. Births: Final data for 2015. National vital statistics reports; vol 66 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_01.pdf.
--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---
This dataset tracks the updates made on the dataset "NCHS - Births to Unmarried Women by Age Group: United States" as a repository for previous versions of the data and metadata.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
Analysis of ‘NCHS - Birth Rates for Unmarried Women by Age, Race, and Hispanic Origin: United States’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/05adf260-cbad-4811-996b-35427e1c800c on 27 January 2022.
--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---
This dataset includes birth rates for unmarried women by age group, race, and Hispanic origin in the United States since 1970.
Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in:
• Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm.
National data on births by Hispanics origin exclude data for Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma in 1989; for New Hampshire and Oklahoma in 1990; for New Hampshire in 1991 and 1992. Information on reporting Hispanic origin is detailed in the Technical Appendix for the 1999 public-use natality data file (see (ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/DVS/natality/Nat1999doc.pdf.)
All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Starting in 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother.
SOURCES
CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, birth data (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm); public-use data files (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/Vitalstatsonline.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov/).
REFERENCES
Curtin SC, Ventura SJ, Martinez GM. Recent declines in nonmarital childbearing in the United States. NCHS data brief, no 162. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db162.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, et al. Births: Final data for 2015. National vital statistics reports; vol 66 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_01.pdf.
--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---
https://www.usa.gov/government-workshttps://www.usa.gov/government-works
This dataset includes percent distribution of births to unmarried women by age group in the United States since 1970.
Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in:
• Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm.
This dataset tracks the updates made on the dataset "NCHS - Birth Rates for Unmarried Women by Age, Race, and Hispanic Origin: United States" as a repository for previous versions of the data and metadata.
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/31622/termshttps://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/31622/terms
The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS, formerly known as the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study) follows a cohort of nearly 5,000 children born in large, U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. The study oversampled births to unmarried couples; and, when weighted, the data are representative of births in large U.S. cities at the turn of the century. The FFCWS was originally designed to address four questions of great interest to researchers and policy makers: What are the conditions and capabilities of unmarried parents, especially fathers? What is the nature of the relationships between unmarried parents? How do children born into these families fare? How do policies and environmental conditions affect families and children? The FFCWS consists of interviews with mothers, fathers, and/or primary caregivers at birth and again when children are ages 1, 3, 5, 9, 15, and 22. The parent interviews collected information on attitudes, relationships, parenting behavior, demographic characteristics, health (mental and physical), economic and employment status, neighborhood characteristics, and program participation. Beginning at age 9, children were interviewed directly (either during the home visit or on the telephone). The direct child interviews collected data on family relationships, home routines, schools, peers, and physical and mental health, as well as health behaviors. A collaborative study of the FFCWS, the In-Home Longitudinal Study of Pre-School Aged Children (In-Home Study) collected data from a subset of the FFCWS Core respondents at the Year 3 and 5 follow-ups to ask how parental resources in the form of parental presence or absence, time, and money influence children under the age of 5. The In-Home Study collected information on a variety of domains of the child's environment, including: the physical environment (quality of housing, nutrition and food security, health care, adequacy of clothing and supervision) and parenting (parental discipline, parental attachment, and cognitive stimulation). In addition, the In-Home Study also collected information on several important child outcomes, including anthropometrics, child behaviors, and cognitive ability. This information was collected through interviews with the child's primary caregiver, and direct observation of the child's home environment and the child's interactions with his or her caregiver. Similar activities were conducted during the Year 9 follow-up. At the Year 15 follow-up, a condensed set of home visit activities were conducted with a subsample of approximately 1,000 teens. Teens who participated in the In-Home Study were also invited to participate in a Sleep Study and were asked to wear an accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist for seven consecutive days to track their sleep (Sleep Actigraphy Data) and that day's behaviors and mood (Daily Sleep Actigraphy and Diary Survey Data). An additional collaborative study collected data from the child care provider (Year 3) and teacher (Years 9 and 15) through mail-based surveys. Saliva samples were collected at Year 9 and 15 (Biomarker file and Polygenic Scores). The Study of Adolescent Neural Development (SAND) COVID Study began data collection in May 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It included online surveys with the young adult and their primary caregiver. The FFCWS began its seventh wave of data collection in October 2020, around the focal child's 22nd birthday. Data collection and interviews continued through January 2024. The Year 22 wave included a young adult (YA) survey with the original focal child and a primary caregiver (PCG) survey. Data were also collected on the children of the original focal child (referred to as Generation 3, or G3). Documentation for these files is available on the FFCWS website located here. For details of updates made to the FFCWS data files, please see the project's Data Alerts page. Data collection for the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health under award numbers R01HD36916, R01HD39135, and R01HD40421, as well as a consortium of private foundations.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
Analysis of ‘NCHS - Natality Measures for Females by Race and Hispanic Origin: United States’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/e96cb229-a501-4633-8635-386ec77fe5a1 on 26 January 2022.
--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---
This dataset includes live births, birth rates, and fertility rates by race of mother in the United States since 1960.
Data availability varies by race and ethnicity groups. All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Since 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother. For race, data are available for Black and White births since 1960, and for American Indians/Alaska Native and Asian/Pacific Islander births since 1980. Data on Hispanic origin are available since 1989. Teen birth rates for specific racial and ethnic categories are also available since 1989. From 2003 through 2015, the birth data by race were based on the “bridged” race categories (5). Starting in 2016, the race categories for reporting birth data changed; the new race and Hispanic origin categories are: Non-Hispanic, Single Race White; Non-Hispanic, Single Race Black; Non-Hispanic, Single Race American Indian/Alaska Native; Non-Hispanic, Single Race Asian; and, Non-Hispanic, Single Race Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (5,6). Birth data by the prior, “bridged” race (and Hispanic origin) categories are included through 2018 for comparison.
SOURCES
NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, birth data (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm); public-use data files (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov/).
REFERENCES
National Office of Vital Statistics. Vital Statistics of the United States, 1950, Volume I. 1954. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/vsus_1950_1.pdf.
Hetzel AM. U.S. vital statistics system: major activities and developments, 1950-95. National Center for Health Statistics. 1997. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/usvss.pdf.
National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Statistics of the United States, 1967, Volume I–Natality. 1969. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/nat67_1.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, et al. Births: Final data for 2015. National vital statistics reports; vol 66 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_01.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, Driscoll AK, Drake P. Births: Final data for 2016. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 67 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2018. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_01.pdf.
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, Driscoll AK, Births: Final data for 2018. National vital statistics reports; vol 68 no 13. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2019. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_13.pdf.
--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---
NCHS - Nonmarital Birth Rates, by Age Group for All Women Age 15-44: United States, 1970-2013
Description
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/births-to-unmarried-women/index.htm
Dataset Details
Publisher: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Temporal Coverage: 1970/2013 Last Modified: 2025-04-21 Contact: National Center for Health Statistics (births@cdc.gov)
Source
Original data can be found at:… See the full description on the dataset page: https://huggingface.co/datasets/HHS-Official/nchs-nonmarital-birth-rates-by-age-group-for-all-w.
This dataset tracks the updates made on the dataset "NCHS - Percent Distribution of Births to Unmarried Women by Age Group: United States" as a repository for previous versions of the data and metadata.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
This record contains the underlying research data for the publication "Efficient child care subsidies". We study the design of child care subsidies in an optimal welfare problem with heterogeneous private market productivities. The optimal subsidy schedule is qualitatively similar to the existing US scheme. Efficiency mandates a subsidy on formal child care costs, with higher subsidies paid to lower income earners and a kink as a function of child care expenditure. Marginal labor income tax rates are set lower than the labor wedges, with the potential to generate negative marginal tax rates. We calibrate our simple model to features of the US labor market and focus on single mothers with children aged below 6. The optimal program provides stronger participation but milder intensive margin incentives for low-income earners with subsidy rates starting very high and decreasing with income more steeply than those in the United States.
The National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), Wave 1 (1987-1988) is the first of three waves in a longitudinal survey that was designed to study the causes and consequences of changes happening in families and households within the United States. At a time when the range of family structures was becoming more and more diverse, this study permitted a close examination of the resulting family compositions and household operations. One adult per household was randomly selected as the primary respondent, and there was a total of 13,007 respondents. In addition to the main interview conducted with the primary respondent, a shorter, self-administered questionnaire was given to the spouse or cohabitating partner, and also administered to the householder if he or she was a relative of the primary respondent. A considerable amount of life-history information was collected, such as the respondent's family living arrangements in childhood, departures and returns to the parental home, and histories of marriage, separation, divorce, cohabitation, adoption, child custody arrangements, and stepfamily relations. Respondents were also asked about the relationship of household members to each other and the quality of their relationships with their parents, children, and in-laws. Information on economic well-being was also collected, including earnings from wages, self-employment income, interest, dividends, investments, pensions, Social Security, public assistance, and child support/alimony. Demographic information collected includes sex, age, marital status, education, and employment. The National Survey of Families and Households main sample was a national, multi-stage area probability sample containing about 17,000 housing units drawn from 100 sampling areas in the 48 contiguous states in the U.S. Wave one had 13,017 respondents, of which 10 invalid/duplicate cases were removed, for a final total of 13,007 respondents. The sample included a main cross-section sample of 9,643 households. The oversample of blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, single-parent families and families with stepchildren, cohabiting couples and recently married was accomplished by doubling the number of households selected within the 100 sampling areas. For more information on sampling, please see Appendix L: National Survey of Families and Households: A Sampling Report within the P.I. Codebook. face-to-face interview; self-enumerated questionnaireTwo percent of the interviews were conducted in Spanish.Fieldwork for Wave 1 of the National Survey of Families and Households was completed by the Institute for Survey Research at Temple UniversityThe second and third waves of NSFH can be accessed by visiting ICPSR 6906 and ICPSR 171 respectively.For additional information on the National Survey of Families and Households, please visit the NSFH Web site. This study has been undertaken explicitly to provide a data resource for the research community at large and was designed with advice from a large number of consultants and correspondents. The substantive coverage has been kept broad to permit the holistic analysis of family experience from an array of theoretical perspectives. Non-institutionalized, English or Spanish speaking population aged 19 and older, living in households within the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: Region The data are not weighted, however, this study contains three weight variables (SAMWT, AWEIGHT, and SPWEIGHT) that should be used in any analysis. Datasets: DS1: National Survey of Families and Households, Wave 1: 1987-1988, [United States] The study design is cross-sectional, with several retrospective sequences. Response Rates: 74.3%
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/datasets/:persistentId/versions/1.1/customlicense?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/PTVNNChttps://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/datasets/:persistentId/versions/1.1/customlicense?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/PTVNNC
The project was launched in 1987 to investigate the human consequences of the Farm Crisis that began in the late 1970s and continued to affect rural America up to 1997, a decline more drastic than any downswing since the 1930s. The core project is directed by Rand Conger of Iowa State University while Elder serves as a co-principal investigator and director of the "Rural Social Change" component of the project. Data collection began in 1989 with a sample of 451 two-parent families from eight north central counties of Iowa. The counties were selected for their rural farm economies and proximity to the project's home at the Family Research Center in Ames, Iowa. In order to facilitate the recruitment of farm families and minimize variations in family structure, the study design called for two-parent families with a 7th-grader and a near sibling (within four years of age). The initial pool of families was defined in terms of 7th grade students who were enrolled in public and private schools during the fall term of 1989. The 7th grade criterion provided a match to the sample used in the study Children of the Great Depression (Elder, 1974). The sample has been followed up annually from 1989 to 1992, then again in 1994 (senior year of high school), 1995, 1997, and 2000. Parents and children were surveyed in each of these years, and in most of the years family interactions were videotaped. The videotapes provide the basis for behavioral ratings of husband-wife interaction, sib interaction, and family interaction. Shortly after the project began two additional samples were added to the project sample; a sample of 107 single-parent families in 1991 and approximately 900 grandparents in 1994. The grandparents were contacted again in 1998 with a subsample participating in an in-depth, face-to-face interview. As of 1999, approximately 500 families are still active participants in the project. The Iowa project is widely regarded as having the richest archive of life record data on rural families and children in the United States, and it is likely to continue for some time to come. Most of the target children are approximately 26 years at present, and periodic data collection is planned over the next five years with support from the National Institute of Mental Health. The Iowa State and UNC teams have worked out a division of labor which reflects the unique strengths and interests of each group. The members of the Ames group share a primary interest in family interactive processes and personal adaptation whereas the Chapel Hill team has developed a program of research concerned with social change in families and lives, with emphasis on the life course and health outcomes.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
This table contains data on the number of licensed day care center slots (facility capacity) per 1,000 children aged 0-5 years in California, its regions, counties, cities, towns, and census tracts. The table contains 2015 data, and includes type of facility (day care center or infant center). Access to child care has become a critical support for working families. Many working families find high-quality child care unaffordable, and the increasing cost of child care can be crippling for low-income families and single parents. These barriers can impact parental choices of child care. Increased availability of child care facilities can positively impact families by providing more choices of child care in terms of price and quality. Estimates for this indicator are provided for the total population, and are not available by race/ethnicity. More information on the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the Data and Resources section. The licensed day care centers table is part of a series of indicators in the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project (HCI) of the Office of Health Equity. The goal of HCI is to enhance public health by providing data, a standardized set of statistical measures, and tools that a broad array of sectors can use for planning healthy communities and evaluating the impact of plans, projects, policy, and environmental changes on community health. The creation of healthy social, economic, and physical environments that promote healthy behaviors and healthy outcomes requires coordination and collaboration across multiple sectors, including transportation, housing, education, agriculture and others. Statistical metrics, or indicators, are needed to help local, regional, and state public health and partner agencies assess community environments and plan for healthy communities that optimize public health. More information on HCI can be found here: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/CDPH%20Document%20Library/Accessible%202%20CDPH_Healthy_Community_Indicators1pager5-16-12.pdf
The format of the licensed day care centers table is based on the standardized data format for all HCI indicators. As a result, this data table contains certain variables used in the HCI project (e.g., indicator ID, and indicator definition). Some of these variables may contain the same value for all observations.
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This graph shows the Percentage of households led by a female householder with no spouse present with own children under 18 years living in the household in the U.S. in 2021, by state. In 2021, about 4.24 percent of Californian households were single mother households with at least one child.
Additional information on single mother households and poverty in the United States
For most single mothers a constant battle persists between finding the time and energy to raise their children and the demands of working to supply an income to house and feed their families. The pressures of a single income and the high costs of childcare mean that the risk of poverty for these families is a tragic reality. Comparison of the overall United States poverty rate since 1990 with that of the poverty rate for families with a female householder shows that poverty is much more prevalent in the latter. In 2021, while the overall rate was at 11.6 percent, the rate of poverty for single mother families was 23 percent. Moreover, the degree of fluctuation tends to be lower for single female household families, suggesting the rate of poverty for these groups is less affected by economic conditions.
The sharp rise in the number of children living with a single mother or single father in the United States from 1970 to 2022 suggests more must be done to ensure that families in such situations are able to avoid poverty. Moreover, attention should also be placed on overall racial income inequality given the higher rate of poverty for Hispanic single mother families than their white or Asian counterparts.